REEF 

POINT 

GARDENS 

LIBRARY 


The  Gift  of  Beatrix  Farrand 

to  the  General  Library 
University  of  Calif omia,Berkeley 


/ 


AUDUBON 

THE 

NATURALIST 


AFTER  THE   RARE   ENGRAVING   BY  C.  TURNER.   A.   R.  A..  OF  THE  MINIATURE 

PAINTED  BY  FREDERICK  CRU1CKSHANK.  ABOUT  18?1  j  PUBLISHED  FOR 

THE    ENGRAVER    BY    ROBERT    HAVELL.    LONDON.    18JS. 


AUDUBON 

THE 

NATURALIST 

A  HISTORY  OF  HIS  LIFE  AND  TIME 


BY 

FRANCIS  HOBART  HERRICK,  Ph.D.,  Sc.D, 

PBOPESSOR  OF  BIOLOGY  IN  WESTERN  RESEEVE  UNIVERSITY; 
AUTHOR  OF  "THE  HOME  LIFE  OF  WILD  BIRDS,"  ETC. 


IN  TWO  VOLUMES 
ILLUSTRATED 


VOLUME   I 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1917 


COPT  RIGHT,    1917,   BY 

D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  Ameriea 


Add'l 

LANDSCAPE 
ARCHITECTURE 

Farrand  Gift 


QL31 


ENVIRON 
LANDSCAPE     DESIGN 

A*CH.  ' 

LIBRARY 


TO 

ELIZABETH 

MY 

SISTER 


270 


PREFACE 

The  origin  of  the  gifted  ornithologist,  animal  painter,  and 
writer,  known  to  the  world  as  John  James  Audubon,  has  re- 
mained a  mystery  up  to  the  present  time.  In  now  lifting  the 
veil  which  was  cast  over  his  early  existence,  I  feel  that  I  serve 
the  cause  of  historical  truth;  at  the  same  time  it  is  possible 
to  do  fuller  justice  to  all  most  intimately  concerned  with  the 
story  of  his  life  and  accomplishments. 

The  present  work  is  in  reality  the  outcome  of  what  was  first 
undertaken  as  a  holiday  recreation  in  the  summer  of  1903. 
While  engaged  upon  a  research  of  quite  a  different  character, 
I  reread,  with  greater  care,  Audubon's  Ornithological  Biog- 
raphy, and  after  turning  the  leaves  of  his  extraordinary  illus- 
trations, it  seemed  to  me  most  strange  that  but  little  should  be 
known  of  the  making  of  so  original  and  masterful  a  character. 
As  I  was  in  England  at  the  time  some  investigations  were 
undertaken  in  London,  but,  as  might  have  been  expected,  with 
rather  barren  results.  After  my  return  to  America  in  the 
following  year  the  search  was  continued,  but  as  it  proved 
equally  fruitless  here,  the  subject  was  set  aside.  Not  until 
1913,  when  this  investigation  was  resumed  in  France,  did  I 
meet  with  success. 

Every  man,  however  poor  or  inconsequential  he  may  ap- 
pear or  be,  is  supposed  to  possess  an  estate,  and  every  man 
of  affairs  is  almost  certain  to  leave  behind  him  domestic,  pro- 
fessional, or  commercial  papers,  which  are,  in  some  degree,  a 
mark  of  his  attainments  and  an  indication  of  his  character 
and  tastes.  In  the  summer  of  1913  I  went  to  France  in 
search  of  the  personal  records  of  the  naturalist's  father,  Lieu- 
tenant Jean  Audubon,  whose  home  had  been  at  Nantes  and  in 
the  little  commune  of  Coueron,  nine  miles  below  that  city,  on 

vii 


viii        AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

the  right  bank  of  the  Loire.  The  part  which  Lieutenant 
Audubon  played  in  the  French  Revolution  was  fully  revealed 
in  his  letters,  his  reports  to  the  Central  Committee,  and  nu- 
merous other  documents  which  are  preserved  in  the  archives 
of  the  Prefecture  at  Nantes ;  while  complete  records  of  his 
naval  career  both  in  the  merchant  marine  and  governmental  ser- 
vice (service  pour  VEtat)  were  subsequently  obtained  at  Paris; 
but  at  Nantes  his  name  had  all  but  vanished,  and  little  could 
be  learned  of  his  immediate  family,  which  had  been  nearly 
extinct  in  France  for  over  thirty  years. 

Again  the  quest  seemed  likely  to  prove  futile  until  a  let- 
ter, which  I  received  through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Louis  Gold- 
schmidt,  then  American  Consul  at  Nantes,  to  M.  Giraud 
Gangie,  coiwervateur  of  the  public  library  in  that  city, 
brought  a  response,  under  date  of  December  £9,  1913,  in- 
forming me  that  two  years  before  that  time,  he  had  met  by 
chance  in  the  streets  of  Coueron  a  retired  notary  who  assured 
him  that  he  held  in  possession  numerous  exact  records  of  Jean 
Audubon  and  his  family.  The  sage  Henry  Thoreau  once  re- 
marked that  you  might  search  long  and  diligently  for  a  rare 
bird,  and  then  of  a  sudden  surprise  the  whole  family  at  dinner. 
So  it  happened  in  this  case,  and  since  these  manuscript  records, 
sought  by  many  in  vain  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  are  so 
important  for  this  history,  the  reader  is  entitled  to  an  account 
of  them. 

Upon  corresponding  with  the  gentleman  in  question,  M.  L. 
Lavigne,  I  was  informed  that  the  documents  in  his  possession 
were  of  the  most  varied  description,  comprising  letters,  wills, 
deeds,  certificates  of  births,  baptisms,  adoptions,  marriages 
and  deaths,  to  the  number,  it  is  believed,  of  several  hundred 
pieces.  This  unique  and  extraordinary  collection  of  Audubon- 
ian  records  had  been  slumbering  in  a  house  in  the  commune  of 
Coueron  called  "Les  Tourterelles"  ("The  Turtle  Doves")  for 
nearly  a  hundred  years,  or  since  the  death  of  the  naturalist's 
stepmother  in  1821. 

Since  I  was  unable  to  judge  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
documents  or  to  visit  France  at  that  time,  my  friend,  Pro- 


PREFACE  ix 

fessor  Gustav  G.  Laubschcr,  who  happened  to  be  in  Paris, 
engaged  in  investigating  Romance  literary  subjects,  kindly 
consented  to  go  to  Coueron  for  the  purpose  of  inspecting  them. 
Monsieur  Lavigne  had  already  prepared  for  me,  and  still  held, 
a  number  of  photographs  of  the  most  important  manuscripts, 
which  are  now  for  the  first  time  reproduced,  and,  with  the 
aid  of  a  stenographer,  in  the  course  of  two  or  three  days  they 
were  able  to  transcribe  the  most  essential  and  interesting  parts 
of  this  voluminous  material.  But  at  that  very  moment  sinister 
clouds  were  blackening  the  skies  of  Europe,  and  my  friend 
was  obliged  to  leave  his  task  unfinished  and  hasten  to  Paris; 
when  he  arrived  in  that  city,  on  the  memorable  Saturday  of 
August  1,  1914,  orders  for  the  mobilization  of  troops  had 
been  posted ;  it  was  some  time  before  copies  of  the  manuscripts 
were  received  from  Coueron,  and  he  left  the  French  capital 
to  return  to  America. 

These  documents  came  into  the  hands  of  Monsieur  La- 
vigne through  his  wife,  who  was  a  daughter  and  legatee  of  Ga- 
briel Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  the  second,  son  of  Gabriel  Loyen  du 
Puigaudeau,  the  son-in-law  of  Lieutenant  and  Mme.  Jean  Audu- 
bon.  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  the  second,  who  died  at 
Coueron  in  1892,  is  thought  to  have  destroyed  all  letters  of  the 
naturalist  which  had  been  in  possession  of  the  family  and 
which  were  written  previous  to  1820,  when  his  relations  with 
the  elder  Du  Puigaudeau  were  broken  off;  not  a  line  in  the 
handwriting  of  John  James  Audubon  has  been  preserved  at 
Coueron. 

In  June  and  July,  1914,  Dr.  Laubscher  had  repeatedly 
applied  to  the  French  Foreign  Office,  through  the  American 
Embassy  at  Paris,  for  permission  to  examine  the  dossier  of 
Jean  Audubon  in  the  archives  of  the  Department  of  the 
Marine,  in  order  to  verify  certain  dates  in  his  naval  career 
and  to  obtain  the  personal  reports  which  he  submitted  upon 
his  numerous  battles  at  sea,  but  at  that  period  of  strain  it 
was  impossible  to  gain  further  access  to  the  papers  sought. 

Having  told  the  story  of  the  way  in  which  these  unique 
and  important  records  came  into  my  possession,  I  wish  to  ex- 


x  AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

press  my  gratitude  to  Professor  Laubscher  for  his  able  co- 
operation in  securing  transcriptions  and  photographs,  and  to 
Monsieur  Lavigne  for  his  kind  permission  to  use  them,  as  well 
as  for  his  careful  response  to  numerous  questions  which  arose 
in  the  course  of  the  investigation. 

In  dealing  with  letters  and  documents,  of  whatever  kind, 
in  manuscript,  I  have  made  it  my  invariable  rule  to  reproduce 
the  form  and  substance  of  the  record  as  it  exists  as  exactly 
as  possible;  in  translations,  however,  no  attempt  has  been 
made  to  preserve  any  minor  idiosyncrasies  of  the  writer.  The 
source  of  all  scientific,  literary  or  historical  material  previously 
published  is  indicated  in  footnotes,  and  the  reader  will  find 
copious  references  to  hitherto  unpublished  documents,  which 
in  their  complete  and  original  form,  with  or  without  transla- 
tions, together  with  an  annotated  Bibliography,  have  been 
gathered  in  Appendices  at  the  end  of  Volume  II.  For  con- 
venience of  reference  each  chapter  has  been  treated  as  a  unit 
so  far  as  the  footnotes  are  concerned,  and  the  quoted  author's 
name,  with  the  title  of  his  work  in  addition  to  the  bibliographic 
number,  has  been  given  in  nearly  every  instance. 

Besides  the  many  coadjutors  whose  friendly  aid  has  been 
gladly  acknowledged  in  the  body  of  this  work,  I  now  wish  to 
offer  my  sincere  thanks,  in  particular,  to  the  Misses  Maria 
R.  and  Florence  Audubon,  granddaughters  of  the  naturalist, 
who  have  shown  me  many  courtesies,  and  to  the  Hon.  Myron 
T.  Herrick,  late  American  Ambassador  to  France,  for  his 
kindly  assistance  in  obtaining  documentary  transcripts  from 
the  Department  of  the  Marine  at  Paris.  I  am  under  special 
obligations  also  to  the  librarians  of  the  British  Museum  and  Ox- 
ford University,  the  Linnaean  and  Zoological  Societies  of  Lon- 
don, the  Jardin  des  Plantes  at  Paris,  the  Public  Libraries  of 
Boston  and  New  York,  and  the  libraries  of  the  Historical  So- 
cieties of  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Boston  and  Louisiana,  as 
well  as  to  the  Director  of  the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology 
of  Harvard  University,  and  to  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History  in  New  York  City,  for  photographs  of  paint- 
ings and  other  objects,  for  permission  to  read  or  copy  manu- 


PREFACE  xi 

scripts,  and  for  favors  of  various  sorts.  Furthermore,  I  am 
indebted  to  the  good  offices  of  Mr.  Ferdinand  Lathrop  Mayer, 
Secretary  of  Legation,  Port-au-Prince,  and  of  M.  Fontaine, 
American  Consular  Agent  at  Les  Cayes,  Haiti,  for  a  series 
of  photographs  made  expressly  to  represent  Les  Cayes  as  it 
appears  today.  I  would  also  acknowledge  the  courtesy  of  the 
Corporation  of  Trinity  Parish,  New  York,  through  Mr. 
Pendleton  Dudley,  for  an  excellent  photograph  of  the  Audu- 
bon  Monument. 

I  cannot  express  too  fully  my  appreciation  of  the  hearty 
response  which  the  publishers  of  these  volumes  have  given  to 
every  question  concerned  with  their  presentation  in  an  ade- 
quate and  attractive  form,  and  particularly  to  Mr.  Francis 
G.  Wickware,  of  D.  Appleton  and  Company,  to  whose  knowl- 
edge, skill,  and  unabated  interest  the  reader,  like  myself,  is  in- 
debted in  manifold  ways. 

My  friend,  Mr.  Ruthven  Deane,  well  known  for  his  inves- 
tigations in  Auduboniana  and.  American  ornithological  litera- 
ture, has  not  only  read  the  proofs  of  the  text,  but  has  gener- 
ously placed  at  my  disposal  many  valuable  notes,  references, 
pictures,  letters  and  other  documents,  drawn  from  his  own 
researches  and  valuable  personal  collections.  I  wish  to 
express  in  the  most  particular  manner  also  my  ap- 
preciation of  the  generous  spirit  in  which  Mr.  Joseph 
Y.  Jeanes  has  opened  the  treasures  in  his  possession, 
embracing  not  only  large  numbers  of  hitherto  unpublished 
letters,  but  an  unrivaled  collection  of  early  unpublished  Au- 
dubonian  drawings,  for  the  enrichment  and  embellishment  of 
these  pages.  For  the  loan  or  transcription  of  other  original 
manuscript  material,  or  for  supplying  much  needed  data  of 
every  description,  I  am  further  most  indebted  to  Mr.  Welton 
H.  Rozier,  of  St.  Louis ;  Mr.  Tom  J.  Rozier,  of  Ste.  Genevieve ; 
Mr.  C.  A.  Rozier,  of  St.  Louis;  the  Secretary  of  the  Linnaean 
Society  of  London,  through  my  friend,  Mr.  George  E.  Bullen, 
of  St.  Albans;  Mr.  Henry  R.  Rowland  of  the  Buffalo  So- 
ciety of  Natural  Sciences,  of  Buffalo;  Mr.  William  Beer,  of 
the  Howard  Memorial  Library,  of  New  Orleans;  and  Mr.  W. 


xii         AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

H.  Wetherill,  of  Philadelphia.  For  the  use  of  new  photo- 
graphic and  other  illustrative  material,  I  am  further  indebted 
to  Mr.  Stanley  Clisby  Arthur,  of  the  Conservation  Commis- 
sion of  Louisiana,  and  to  Cassinia,  the  medium  of  publication 
of  the  Delaware  Valley  Ornithological  Club. 

Through  the  kindness  of  Messrs.  Charles  Scribner's  Sons 
I  have  been  permitted  to  draw  rather  freely  from  Audubon 
and  His  Journals,  by  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon  and  Elliott 
Coues,  and  to  reproduce  three  portraits  therefrom;  original 
photographs  of  two  of  these  have  been  kindly  supplied  by  Dr. 
R.  W.  Shufeldt.  I  also  owe  to  the  courtesy  of  the  Girard 
Trust  Company,  of  Philadelphia,  the  privilege  of  quoting  cer- 
tain letters  contained  in  William  Healey  Dall's  Spencer  FuL- 
lerton  Baird. 

To  my  esteemed  colleague,  Professor  Benjamin  P.  Bour- 
land,  I  am  under  particular  obligations  for  his  invahiable  ai(l 
in  revising  translations  from  the  French  and  in  the  translitera- 
tion of  manuscripts,  as  well  as  for  his  kindly  assistance  in 
correspondence  on  related  subjects.  I  have  derived  much 
benefit  also  from  my  sister,  Miss  Elizabeth  A.  Herrick,  who 
has  made  many  valuable  suggestions.  To  all  others  who  have 
aided  me  by  will  or  deed  in  the  course  of  this  work  I  wish  to 
express  my  cordial  thanks. 

FEANCIS  H.  HEERICK. 
Western  Reserve  University,. 

Cleveland. 
July  2,  1917. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOLUME  I 


PAGE 

PREFACE       .       ...       .       .       .........     vii 

CHRONOLOGY  : xxv 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Audubon's  growing  fame — Experience  in  Paris  in  1828 — Cuvier's  patron- 
age— Audubon's  publications — His  critics — His  talents  and  accom- 
plishments— His  Americanism  and  honesty  of  purpose — His  foibles 
and  faults — Appreciations  and  monuments — The  Audubon  Societies 
— Biographies  and  autobiography — Robert  Buchanan  and  the  true 
history  of  his  Life  of  Audubon 1 

CHAPTER  II 

JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  His  FAMILY 

Extraordinary  career  of  the  naturalist's  father — Wounded  at  fourteen 
and  prisoner  of  war  for  five  years  in  England — Service  in  the 
French  merchant  marine  and  navy — Voyages  to  Newfoundland  and 
Santo  Domingo — His  marriage  in  France — His  sea  fights,  capture 
and  imprisonment  in  New  York — His  command  at  the  Battle  of 
Yorktown — Service  in  America  and  encounters  with  British  priva- 
teers   04 

CHAPTER  III 

JEAN  AUDUBON  AS  SANTO  DOMINGO  PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT 

Captain  Audubon  at  Les  Cayes — As  planter,  sugar  refiner,  general 
merchant  and  slave  dealer,  amasses  a  fortune — His  return  to 
France  with  his  children — History  of  the  Santo  Domingo  revolt — 
Baron  de  Wimpffen's  experience — Revolution  of  the  whites — Op- 
position of  the  abolitionists— Effect  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights 
on  the  mulattoes — The  General  Assembly  drafts  a  new  constitution 
—First  blood  drawn  between  revolutionists  and  loyalists  at  Port- 

xiii 


xiv        AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

PAGE 

au-Prince — Oge's  futile  attempt  to  liberate  the  mulattoes — Les 
Cayes  first  touched  by  revolution  in  1790,  four  years  after  the  death 
of  Audubon's  mother — Emancipation  of  the  mulattoes — Resistance 
of  the  whites — General  revolt  of  blacks  against  whites  and  the 
ruin  of  the  colony 36 

CHAPTER  IV 

AUDUBON'S  BIRTH,  NATIONALITY,  AND  PARENTAGE 

Les  Cayes — Audubon's  French  Creole  mother — His  early  names — Discov- 
ery of  the  Sanson  bill  with  the  only  record  of  his  birth — Medical 
practice  of  an  early  day — Birth  of  Muguet,  Audubon's  sister — 
Fougere  and  Muguet  taken  to  France — Audubon's  adoption  and 
baptism — His  assumed  name — Dual  personality  in  legal  documents 
— Source  of  published  errors — Autobiographic  records — Rise  of 
enigma  and  tradition — The  Marigny  myth 52 

CHAPTER  V 

LIEUTENANT  AUDUBON  AS  REVOLUTIONIST 

Background  of  Audubon's  youth — Nantes  in  Revolution — Revolt  in  La 
Vendee — Siege  of  Nantes — Reign  of  terror  under  Carrier — Plague 
robbing  the  guillotine — Flight  of  the  population — Execution  of 
Charette — The  Chouan  raid — Citizen  Audubon's  service — He  re- 
enters  the  navy  and  takes  a  prize  from  the  English — His  subse- 
quent naval  career — His  losses  in  Santo  Domingo — His  service  and 
rank — Retires  on  a  pension — His  death — His  character  and  appear- 
ance . 73 

CHAPTER  VI 
SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE 

Molding  of  Audubon's  character — Factor  of  environment — Turning  fail- 
ure into  success — An  indulgent  step-mother — The  truant — His  love 
of  nature — Early  drawings  and  discipline — Experience  at  Roche- 
fort— Baptized  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  .  .  .  .  .  90 

CHAPTER  VII 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES,  AND  LIFE  AT 
"MILL  GROVE" 

Audubon  is  sent  to  the  United  States  to  learn  English  and  enter  trade 
—Taken  ill— Befriended  by  the  Quakers— Settles  at  "Mill  Grove" 


CONTENTS  xv 

PAGE 

farm — Its  history  and  attractions — Studies  of  American  birds  be- 
gun— Engagement  to  Lucy  Bakewell — Sports  and  festivities    .       .     98 

CHAPTER  VIII 
DACOSTA  AND  THE  "MILL  GROVE"  MINE 

Advent  of  a  new  agent  at  "Mill  Grove" — Dacosta  becomes  guardian 
to  young  Audubon  and  exploits  a  neglected  lead  mine  on  the  farm 
— Correspondence  of  Lieutenant  Audubon  and  Dacosta — Quarrel 
with  Dacosta — Audubon's  return  to  France 113 

CHAPTER  IX 

AUDUBON'S  LAST  VISIT  TO  HIS  HOME  IN  FEANCE 

Life  at  Coueron — Friendship  of  D'Orbigny — Drawings  of  French  birds 
— D'Orbigny's  troubles — Marriage  of  Rosa  Audubon — The  Du  Pui- 
gaudeaus— Partnership  with  Ferdinand  Rozier— Their  Articles  of 
Association — They  sail  from  Nantes,  are  overhauled  by  British 
privateers,  but  land  safely  at  New  York— Settle  at  "Mill  Grove"  .  127 

CHAPTER  X 

"LA  GERBETIERE"  OF  YESTERDAY  AND  TODAY 

Home  of  Audubon's  youth  at  Coueron — Its  situation  on  the  Loire — 
History  of  the  villa  and  commune — Changes  of  a  century  .  .  .  136 

CHAPTER  XI 

FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS  AT  NEW  YORK,  AND  SEQUEL  TO 
THE  "MILL  GROVE"  MINE 

Audubon  and  Rozier  at  "Mill  Grove"— Their  partnership  rules— At- 
tempts to  form  a  mining  company  lead  to  disappointment — Deci- 
sion to  sell  their  remaining  interests  in  "Mill  Grove"  to  Dacosta — 
Division  of  the  property  and  legal  entanglements — Audubon  as  a 
clerk  in  New  York — Business  correspondence  and  letters  to  his 
father — Later  history  of  the  lead  mine  and  Dacosta — Audubon 
continues  his  drawings  in  New  York  and  works  for  Dr.  Mitchell's 
Museum — Forsakes  the  counting-room  for  the  fields — Personal 
sketch  .  .146 


xvi        AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

CHAPTER  XII 

EARLY  DRAWINGS  IN  FRANCE  AND  AMERICA 

PAGE 

Child  and  man — His  ideals,  perseverance  and  progress — Study  under 
David  at  Paris — David's  pupils  and  studios — David  at  Nantes 
arouses  the  enthusiasm  of  its  citizens — His  part  in  the  Revolution 
— His  art  and  influence  over  Audubon — Audubon's  drawings  of 
French  birds — Story  of  the  Edward  Harris  collection — The  Birds 
of  America  in  the  bud — Audubon's  originality,  style,  methods,  and 
mastery  of  materials  and  technique — His  problem  and  how  he 
solved  it— His  artistic  defects 173 

CHAPTER  XIII 

AUDUBON'S  MARRIAGE  AND  SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST 

Audubon  and  Rozier  decide  to  start  a  pioneer  store  at  Louisville, 
Kentucky — Their  purchase  of  goods  in  New  York — "Westward 
Ho"  with  Rozier — Rozier's  diary  of  the  journey — An  unfortunate 
investment  in  indigo — Effect  of  the  Embargo  Act — Marriage  to 
Lucy  Bakewell — Return  to  Louisville — Life  on  the  Ohio — Depres- 
sion of  trade — William  Bakewell's  assistance — Audubon's  eldest  son 
born  at  the  "Indian  Queen"— The  Bakewells— Life  at  Louisville  .  186 

CHAPTER  XIV 

A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS,  AND  SKETCH  OF  ANOTHER  PIONEER 

Alexander  Wilson  and  his  American  Ornithology — His  canvassing  tour 
of  1810 — His  retort  to  a  Solomon  of  the  bench — Descriptions  of 
Pittsburgh,  Cincinnati  and  Louisville — Meeting  with  Audubon — 
Journey  to  New  Orleans — Youth  in  Scotland — Weaver,  itinerant 
peddler,  poet  and  socialist— Sent  to  jail  for  libel— Emigrates  to  the 
United  States — Finally  settles  as  a  school  teacher  near  Philadel- 
phia— His  friendships  with  Bartram  and  Lawson — Disappoint- 
ments in  love — Early  studies  of  American  birds — His  drawings, 
thrift,  talents  and  genius — Publication  of  his  Ornithology — His 
travels,  discouragements  and  success — His  premature  death — Con- 
flicting accounts  of  the  visit  to  Audubon  given  by  the  two  natural- 
ists—Rivalry between  the  friends  of  Wilson,  dead,  and  those  of 
Audubon,  living — The  controversy  which  followed — An  evasive 
"Flycatcher"— Singular  history  of  the  Mississippi  Kite  plate  .  .  202 


CONTENTS  xvii 

CHAPTER  XV 

EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  ON  THE  FRONTIER 

PAGE 

The  Ohio  a  hundred  years  ago — Hardships  of  the  pioneer  trader — 
Audubon's  long  journeys  by  overland  trail  or  river  to  buy  goods — 
The  "ark"  and  keelboat — Chief  pleasures  of  the  naturalist  at  Louis- 
ville— The  partners  move  their  goods  by  flatboat  to  Henderson, 
Kentucky,  and  then  to  Ste.  Genevieve  (Missouri)— Held  up  by  the 
ice — Adventures  with  the  Indians — Mississippi  in  flood — Camp  at 
the  Great  Bend — Abundance  of  game — Breaking  up  of  the  ice — 
Settle  at  Ste.  Genevieve — The  partnership  dissolved — Audubon's 
return  to  Henderson — Rozier's  successful  career — His  old  store  at 
Ste.  Genevieve 233 

CHAPTER  XVI 

AUDUBON'S  MILL  AND  FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS 

Dr.  Rankin's  "Meadow  Brook  Farm"— Birth  of  John  Woodhouse  Audu- 
bon — The  Audubon-Bakewell  partnership — Meeting  with  Nolte — 
Failure  of  the  commission  business — Visit  to  Rozier — Storekeeping 
at  Henderson — Purchases  of  land — Habits  of  frontier  tradesmen 
— Steamboats  on  the  Ohio — Popular  pastimes — Audubon-Bakewell- 
Pears  partnership — Their  famous  steam  mill — Mechanical  and  finan- 
cial troubles — Business  reorganization — Bankruptcy  general — Fail- 
ure of  the  mill — Personal  encounter — Audubon  goes  to  jail  for 
debt  .  , ....  247 

CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE  AND  THE  HISTORY  OF  His 
FAMILY  IN  FRANCE 

Death  of  Lieutenant  Audubon— Contest  over  his  will— Disposition  of 
his  estate — The  fictitious  $17,000 — Unsettled  claims  of  Formon  and 
Ross — Illusions  of  biographers — Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau — 
Audubon's  relations  with  the  family  in  France  broken — Death  of 
the  naturalist's  stepmother— The  Du  Puigaudeaus— Sources  of 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

EARLY  EPISODES  OF  WESTERN  LIFE 

Methods  of  composition— "A  Wild  Horse"— Henderson  to  Philadelphia 
in   1811— Records   of  Audubon   and   Nolte,   fellow  travelers,  com- 


xviii      AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

PAGE 

pared — The  great  earthquakes — The  hurricane — The  outlaw — Char- 
acterization of  Daniel  Boone — Desperate  plight  on  the  prairie — 
Regulator  law  in  action — Frontier  necessities — The  ax  married  to 
the  grindstone .  .  273 


CHAPTER  XIX 

AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE 

The  "Eccentric  Naturalist"  at  Henderson — Bats  and  new  species — The 
demolished  violin — "M.  de  T.":  Constantine  Samuel  Rafinesque 
(Schmaltz) — His  precocity,  linguistic  acquirements  and  peripatetic 
habits — First  visit  to  America  and  botanical  studies — Residence  in 
Sicily,  and  fortune  made  in  the  drug  trade — Association  with 
Swainson — Marriage  and  embitterment — His  second  journey  to 
America  ends  in  shipwreck — Befriended — Descends  Ohio  in  a  flat- 
boat — Visit  with  Audubon,  who  gives  him  many  strange  "new 
species" — Cost  to  zoology — His  unique  work  on  Ohio  fishes — Profes- 
sorship in  Transylvania  University — Quarrel  with  its  president  and 
trustees — Return  to  Philadelphia — His  ardent  love  of  nature;  his 
writings,  and  fatal  versatility — His  singular  will — His  sad  end  and 
the  ruthless  disposition  of  his  estate 285 

CHAPTER  XX 

AUDUBON'S  JENEID,  1819-1824:  WANDERINGS  THROUGH  THE 
WEST  AND  SOUTH 

Pivotal  period  in  Audubon's  career — His  spur  and  balance  wheel — 
Resort  to  portraiture — Taxidermist  in  the  Western  Museum — Set- 
tles in  Cincinnati — History  of  his  relations  with  Dr.  Drake — De- 
cides to  make  his  avocation  his  business — Journey  down  the  Ohio 
and  Mississippi  with  Mason  and  Cummin gs — Experiences  of  travel 
without  a  cent  of  capital — Life  in  New  Orleans — Vanderlyn's  rec- 
ommendation— Original  drawings — Chance  meeting  with  Mrs.  Pir- 
rie  and  engagement  as  tutor  at  "Oakley" — Enchantments  of  West 
Feliciana — "My  lovely  Miss  Pirrie" — The  jealous  doctor — Famous 
drawing  of  the  rattlesnake — Leaves  St.  Francisville  and  is  adrift 
again  in  New  Orleans — Obtains  pupils  in  drawing  and  is  joined 
by  his  family — Impoverished,  moves  to  Natchez,  and  Mrs.  Audu- 
bon becomes  a  governess — Injuries  to  his  drawings — The  labors  of 
years  destroyed  by  rats — Teaching  in  Tennessee — Parting  with 
Mason — First  lessons  in  oils — Mrs.  Audubon's  school  at  "Beech- 
woods" — Painting  tour  fails — Stricken  at  Natchez — At  the  Percys' 
plantation— Walk  to  Louisville— Settles  at  Shippingport  .  .  .301 


CONTENTS  xix 

CHAPTER  XXI 

DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST 

PAOB 

Makes  his  bow  at  Philadelphia — Is  greeted  with  plaudits  and  cold  water 
— Friendship  of  Harlan,  Stilly,  Bonaparte  and  Harris — Hostility  of 
Ord,  Lawson  and  other  friends  of  Alexander  Wilson — A  meeting 
of  academicians— Visit  to  "Mill  Grove"— Exhibits  drawings  in 
New  York  and  becomes  a  member  of  the  Lyceum — At  the  Falls 
of  Niagara — In  a  gale  on  Lake  Erie — Episode  at  Meadville — Walk 
to  Pittsburgh — Tour  of  Lakes  Ontario  and  Champlain — Decides  to 
take  his  drawings  to  Europe — Descends  the  Ohio  in  a  skiff — 
Stranded  at  Cincinnati— Teaching  at  St.  Francisville  .  .  .  .327 

CHAPTER  XXII 

To  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS 

Audubon  sails  from  New  Orleans — Life  at  sea — Liverpool — The  Rath- 
bones — Exhibition  of  drawings  an  immediate  success — Personal  ap- 
pearance— Painting  habits  resumed — His  pictures  and  methods — 
Manchester  visited — Plans  for  publication — The  Birds  of  America 
— Welcome  at  Edinburgh — Lizars  engraves  the  Turkey  Cock — In 
the  role  of  society's  lion— His  exhibition  described  by  a  French 
critic — Honors  of  science  and  the  arts — Contributions  to  journals 
excite  criticism — Aristocratic  patrons — Visit  to  Scott — The  Wild 
Pigeon  and  the  rattlesnake— Letter  to  his  wife— Prospectus— Jour- 
ney to  London 347 

CHAPTER  XXIII 

AUDUBON  IN  LONDON 

Impressions  of  the  metropolis — A  trunk  full  of  letters — Friendship  of 
Children — Sir  Thomas  Lawrence — Lizars  stops  work — A  family  of 
artists — Robert  Havell,  Junior — The  Birds  of  America  fly  to  Lon- 
don—The Zoological  Gallery — Crisis  in  the  naturalist's  affairs- 
Royal  patronage— Interview  with  Gallatin— Interesting  the  Queen- 
Desertion  of  patrons — Painting  to  independence — Personal  habits 
and  tastes — Enters  the  Linnaean  Society — The  white-headed  Eagle 
—Visit  to  the  great  universities— Declines  to  write  for  magazines 
— Audubon-Swainson  correspondence — "Highfield  Hall"  near  Tyt- 
tenhanger— In  Paris  with  Swainson— Glimpses  of  Cuvier— His  re- 
port on  The  Birds  of  America— Patronage  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment and  the  Duke  of  Orleans— Bonaparte  the  naturalist  .  .  .377 


xx         AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

CHAPTER  XXIV 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  NEW  BIRDS 

PAGE 

Settles  for  a  time  in  Camden — Paints  in  a  fisherman's  cottage  by  the 
sea— With  the  lumbermen  in  the  Great  Pine  Woods— Work  done- 
Visits  his  sons — Joins  his  wife  at  St.  Francisville — Record  of  jour- 
ney south — Life  at  "Beechgrove" — Mrs.  Audubon  retires  from 
teaching — Their  plans  to  return  to  England — Meeting  with  Presi- 
dent Jackson  and  Edward  Everett »  •  420 

CHAPTER  XXV 

AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS  AND  ITS  RIVALS 

Settlement  in  London — Starts  on  canvassing  tour  with  his  wife — 
Change  of  plans — In  Edinburgh — Discovery  of  MacGillivray — His 
hand  in  the  Ornithological  Biography — Rival  editions  of  Wilson 
and  Bonaparte — Brown's  extraordinary  Atlas — Reception  of  the 
Biography — Joseph  Bartholomew  Kidd  and  the  Ornithological  Gal- 
lery— In  London  again .,  .  437 


ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  VOLUME  I 

Audubon.     After  a  photograph  of  a  cast  of  the  intaglio  cut  by  John 

C.  King  in  1844.     Embossed  medallion Cover 

Audubon.  After  the  engraving  by  C.  Turner,  A.R.A.,  of  the  minia- 
ture on  ivory  painted  by  Frederick  Cruikshank  about  1831;  "Lon- 
don. Published  Jan.  12,  1835,  for  the  Proprietor  [supposed  to 
have  been  the  engraver,  but  may  have  been  Audubon  or  Havell], 
by  Robert  Havell,  Printseller,  77,  Oxford  Street."  Photogra- 
vure   Frontispiece 

PAGE 

Statue  of  Audubon  by  Edward  Virginius  Valentine  in  Audubon  Park, 
New  Orleans  .  .  .  . . Facing  14 

The  Audubon  Monument  in  Trinity  Cemetery,  New  York,  on  Chil- 
dren's Day,  June,  1915 Facing  14 

Les  Cayes,  Haiti:  the  wharf  and  postoffice     ....      Facing    40 
Les  Cayes,  Haiti:  the  market  and  Church  of  Sacr6  Coeur      .      Facing    40 

First  page  of  the  bill  rendered  by  Dr.  Sanson,  of  Les  Cayes,  Santo 
Domingo,  to  Jean  Audubon  for  medical  services  from  December 
29,  1783,  to  October  19,  1785 Facing  54 

Second  page  of  the  Sanson  bill,  bearing,  in  the  entry  for  April  26, 
1785,  the  only  record  known  to  exist  of  the  date  of  Audubon's 
birth Facing  55 

Third  page  of  the  Sanson  bill,  signed  as  accepted  by  Jean  Audubon, 
October  12,  1786,  and  receipted  by  the  doctor,  when  paid,  June  7, 
1787 .  Facing  54 

Audubon's  signature  at  various  periods.     From  early  drawings,  legal 

documents  and  letters 63 

Lieutenant  Jean  Audubon  and  Anne  Moynet  Audubon.  After  por- 
traits painted  between  1801  and  1806,  now  at  Coueron  .  Facing  78 

Jean    Audubon.     After    a   portrait    painted   by   the   American   artist 

Polk,  at  Philadelphia,  about   1789 Facing    78 

Jean  Audubon's  signature.  From  a  report  to  the  Directory  of  his 
Department,  when  acting  as  Civil  Commissioner,  January  to  Sep- 
tember, 1793  '.'.'. 79 

Certificate  of  Service  which  Lieutenant  Audubon  received  upon  his 
discharge  from  the  French  Navy,  February  26,  1801  ...  84 


xxii      AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

PAGE 

"Mill  Grove"  in  1835  (about).    After  a  water-color  painting  by  Charles 

Wetherill Facing  102 

"Mill  Grove,"  Audubon,  Pennsylvania,  as  it  appears  to-day    .      Facing  102 
"Mill  Grove"  farmhouse,  west  front,  as  it  appears  to-day      .      Facing  110 

"Fatland  Ford,"  Audubon,  Pennsylvania,  the  girlhood  home  of  Lucy 

Bakewell  Audubon Facing  110 

Early  drawings  of  French  birds,  1805,  hitherto  unpublished:  the  male 

Reed  Bunting  ("Sedge  Sparrow"),  and  the  male  Redstart      Facing  128 

Receipt  given  by  Captain  Sammis  of  the  Polly  to  Audubon  and  Ferdi 
nand  Rozier  for  their  passage  money  from  Nantes  to  New  York, 
May  28,  1806 134 

"La  Gerbetiere,"  Jean  Audubon's  country  villa  at  Coueron,  France,  and 

the  naturalist's  boyhood  home Facing  136 

"La  Gerbetiere"  and  Coueron,  as  seen  from  the  highest  point  in  the 
commune,  windmill  towers  on  the  ridge  overlooking  Port  Launay, 
on  the  Loire Facing  142 

"La  Gerbetiere,"  as  seen  when  approached  from  Coueron  village  by  the 

road  to   Port  Launay          .......      Facing  142 

Port  Launay  on  the  Loire Facing  142 

Beginning  of  the  "Articles  of  Association"  of  John  James  Audubon 

and  Ferdinand  Rozier,  signed  at  Nantes,  March  23,  1806      Facing  146 

First  page  of  a  power  of  attorney  granted  by  Jean  Audubon,  Anne 
Moynet  Audubon  and  Claude  Fran9ois  Rozier  to  John  James  Au- 
dubon and  Ferdinand  Rozier,  Nantes,  April  4,  1806  .  Facing  152 

Signatures  of  Jean  Audubon,  Anne  Moynet  Audubon,  Dr.  Chapelain 
and  Dr.  Charles  d'Orbigny  to  a  power  of  attorney  granted  to  John 
James  Audubon  and  Ferdinand  Rozier,  Coueron,  November  20, 
1806 Facing  153 

Early  drawings  of  French  birds,  1805,  hitherto  unpublished:  the  Euro 
pean  Crow,  with  detail  of  head  of  the  Rook,  and  the  White  Wag- 
tail   Facing  174 

Early  drawing  in  crayon  point  of  the  groundhog,  1805,  hitherto  un- 
published   Facing  182 

Water-color  drawing  of  a  young  raccoon,  1841        .        .        .      Facing  182 

Alexander  Wilson Facing  212 

William  Bartram Facing  212 

The  "twin"  Mississippi  Kites  of  Wilson  and  Audubon,  the  similarity 
of  which  inspired  charges  of  misappropriation  against  Audu- 
bon   Facing  228 


ILLUSTRATIONS  xxiii 

PACK 

Audubon's  signature  to  the  release  given  to  Ferdinand  Rozier  on  the 

dissolution    of    their    partnership    in    1811 242 

Ferdinand  Rozier  in  his  eighty-fifth  year  (1862)     .        .        .      Facing  246 
Rozier's  old  store  at  Ste.  Genevieve,  Kentucky        .         .         .      Facing  246 

Letter  of  Audubon  to  Ferdinand  Rozier,  signed  "Audubon  &  Bake- 
well,"  and  dated  October  19,  1813,  during  the  first  partnership 
under  this  style 251 

Audubon's  Mill  at  Henderson,  Kentucky,  since  destroyed,  as  seen  from 

the  bank  of  the  Ohio  River Facing  254 

An  old  street  in  the  Coueron  of  today Facing  264 

"Les  Tourterelles,"  Coueron,  final  home  of  Anne  Moynet  Audubon,  and 
the  resting-place  of  exact  records  of  the  naturalist's  birth  and 
early  life Facing  264 

Early  drawings  of  American  birds,  1808-9,  hitherto  unpublished:  the 

Belted  Kingfisher  and  the  Wild  Pigeon    ....       Facing  292 

Bayou  Sara  Landing,  West  Feliciana  Parish,  Louisiana,  at  the  junc- 
tion of  Bayou  Sara  and  the  Mississippi  River  .  .  Facing  314 

Scene     on     Bayou     Sara     Creek,     Audubon's     hunting     ground     in 

x821 Facing  314 

Road  leading  from  Bayou  Sara  Landing  to  the  village  of  St.  Francis- 

ville,    West    Feliciana    Parish Facing  318 

"Oakley,"  the  James  Pirrie  plantation  house  near  St.  Francisville,  where 
Audubon  made  some  of  his  famous  drawings  while  acting  as  a 
tutor  in  1821 Facing  318 

An  early  letter  of  Audubon  to  Edward  Harris,  written  at  Philadel- 
phia, July  14,  1824 332 

Note  of  Dr.  Samuel  Latham  Mitchell,  written  hurriedly  in  pencil, 
recommending  Audubon  to  his  friend,  Dr.  Barnes,  August  4, 
1824 337 

Crayon  portrait  of  Miss  Jennett  Benedict,  an  example  of  Audubon's 
itinerant  portraiture.  After  the  original  drawn  by  Audubon  at 
Meadville,  Pennsylvania,  in  1824 Facing  342 

Miss  Eliza  Pirrie,  Audubon's  pupil   at  "Oakley"  in  1821.     After  an 

oil    portrait Facing  342 

Early  drawing  of  the  "Frog-eater,"  Cooper's  Hawk,  1810,  hitherto  un- 
published   Facing  348 

Pencil  sketch  of  a  "Shark,  7  feet  long,  off  Cuba,"  from  Audubon's 

Journal  of  his  voyage  to  England  in  1826        .        .        .      Facing  348 

First  page  of  Audubon's  Journal  of  his  voyage  from  New  Orleans  to 

Liverpool  in  1826 Facing  349 


xxiv      AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

PAGE 

Cock  Turkey,  The  Birds  of  America,  Plate  I.  After  the  original 
engraving  by  W.  H.  Lizars,  retouched  by  Robert  Havell. 
Color Facing  358 

Title  page  of  the  original  edition  of  The  Birds  of  America,  Volume  II, 

1831-1834 381 

The  Prothonotary  Warbler  plates,  The  Birds  of  America,  Plate  XI, 
bearing  the  legends  of  the  engravers,  W.  H.  Lizars  and  Robert 
Havell,  Jr.,  but  identical  in  every  other  detail  of  engrav- 
ing   Facing  384 

Reverse  of  panels  of  Robert  HavelPs  advertising  folder  reproduced 

on  facing  insert    . 386 

Outside  engraved  panels  of  an  advertising  folder  issued  by  Robert 
Havell  about  1834.  After  the  only  original  copy  known  to 
exist Facing  386 

Inside  engraved  panels  of  Robert  Havell's  advertising  folder,  showing 

the  interior  of  the  "Zoological  Gallery,"  77  Oxford  Street      Facing  387 

Reverse  of  panels  of  Robert  Havell's  advertising  folder,  reproduced 

on  facing  insert 387 

Title  page  of  Audubon's  Prospectus  of  The  Birds  of  America  for 

1831        .        .        .        ...        .        .  ,      .        .  .     .        .        .391 

English  Pheasants  surprised  by  a  Spanish  Dog.    After  a  painting  by 

Audubon  in  the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History    .      Facing  394 

Letter  of  William  Swainson  to  Audubon,  May,  1828        .        .        .        .402 

Audubon.     After  an  oil  portrait,  hitherto  unpublished,  painted  about 

1826  by  W.  H.  Holmes        .......      Facing  412 

Part  of  letter  of   Charles   Lucien   Bonaparte   to   Audubon,   January 

10,    1829 417 

Mrs.  Dickie's  "Boarding  Residence,"  26  George  Street,  Edinburgh, 
where  Audubon  painted  and  wrote  in  1826-27,  and  in  1830- 
31  .  .  . Facing  438 

The    Academy    of    Natural    Sciences,    Philadelphia.      After    an    old 

print Facing  438 

Title  page  of  the  Ornithological  Biography,  Volume  I    ....  441 


CHRONOLOGY 


1785 

April  26. — Fougere,  Jean  Rabin,   or  Jean  Jacques  Fougere 
Audubon,  born  at  Les  Cayes,  Santo  Domingo,  now  Haiti. 


1789 

Fougere,  at  four  years,  and  Muguet,  his  sister  by  adoption,  at 
two,  are  taken  by  their  father  to  the  United  States,  and 
thence  to  France. 

1794 

March  7  (17  ventose,  an  2). — Fougere,  when  nine  years  old, 
and  Muguet  at  six,  are  legally  adopted  as  the  children  of 
Jean  Audubon  and  Anne  Moynet,  his  wife. 


1800 

October  23  (1  brumaire,  an  9). — Baptized,  Jean  Jacques  Fou- 
gere, at  Nantes,  when  in  his  sixteenth  year. 

1802-1803 

Studies  drawing  for  a  brief  period  under  Jacques  Louis  David, 
at  Paris. 

1803 

First  return  to  America,  at  eighteen,  to  learn  English  and 
enter  trade:  settles  at  "Mill  Grove"  farm,  near  Phila- 
delphia, where  he  spends  a  year  and  begins  his  studies  of 
American  birds. 

xxv 


xxvi      AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

1804 

December  15. — Half-interest  in  "Mill  Grove"  acquired  by 
Francis  Dacosta,  who  begins  to  exploit  its  lead  mine;  he 
also  acts  as  guardian  to  young  Audubon,  who  becomes 
engaged  to  Lucy  Green  Bakewell;  quarrel  with  Dacosta 
follows. 

1805 

January  12-15  (?). — Walks  to  New  York,  where  Benjamin 
Bakewell  supplies  him  with  passage  money  to  France. 

January  18  (about). — Sails  on  the  Hope  for  Nantes,  and  ar- 
rives about  March  18. 

A  year  spent  at  "La  Gerbetiere,"  in  Coueron,  where  he  hunts 
birds  with  D'Orbigny  and  makes  many  drawings,  and  at 
Nantes,  where  plans  are  made  for  his  return,  with  Ferdi- 
nand Rozier,  to  America. 


1806 

Enters  the  French  navy  at  this  time,  or  earlier,  but  soon  with- 
draws. 

March  23. — A  business  partnership  is  arranged  with  Ferdinand 
Rozier,  and  Articles  of  Association  are  signed  at  Nantes. 

April  12. — Sails  with  Rozier  on  the  Polly,  Captain  Sammis,  and 
lands  in  New  York  on  May  26. 

They  settle  at  "Mill  Grove"  farm,  where  they  remain  less  than 
four  months,  meanwhile  making  unsuccessful  attempts  to 
operate  the  lead  mine  on  the  property. 

September  15. — Remaining  half  interest  in  "Mill  Grove"  farm 
and  mine  acquired  by  Francis  Dacosta  &  Company,  condi- 
tionally, the  Audubons  and  Roziers  holding  a  mortgage. 


1806-1807 

Serves  as  clerk  in  Benjamin  Bakewell's  commission  house  in 
New  York,  but  continues  his  studies  and  drawings  of  birds, 
and  works  for  Dr.  Mitchell's  Museum. 


CHRONOLOGY  xxvii 

1807 

With  Rozier  decides  to  embark  in  trade  in  Kentucky. 
August  1. — They  purchase  their  first  stock  of  goods  in  New 

York. 
August  31. — Starts  with  Rozier  for  Louisville,  where  they  open 

a  pioneer  store. 
Their  business  suffers  from  the  Embargo  Act. 

1808 

June  12. — Married  to  Lucy  Bakewell  at  "Fatland  Ford,"  her 
father's  farm  near  Philadelphia,  and  returns  with  his  bride 
to  Louisville. 

1809 

June  1*2. — Victor  Gifford  Audubon  born  at  Gwathway's  hotel, 
the  "Indian  Queen,"  in  Louisville. 

181$ 

March. — Alexander  Wilson,  pioneer  ornithologist,  visits  Audu- 
bon at  Louisville. 

Moves  down  river  with  Rozier  to  Redbanks  (Henderson),  Ken- 
tucky. 

December. — Moves  with  Rozier  again,  and  is  held  up  by  ice  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  and  at  the  Great  Bend  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi, where  they  spend  the  winter. 

1811 

Reaches    Sainte  Genevieve,  Upper  Louisiana   (Missouri),  in 

early  spring. 
April  6. — Dissolves  partnership  with  Rozier,  and  returns  to 

Henderson  afoot. 
Joins  in  a  commission  business  with  his  brother-in-law,  Thomas 

W.  Bakewell. 
December. — Meets  Vincent  Nolte  when  returning  to  Louisville 

from  the  East,  and  descends  the  Ohio  in  his  flatboat. 


xxviii    AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

1812 

The  annus  mirabilis  in  Kentucky,  marked  by  a  series  of  earth- 
quakes, which  begins  December  16,  1811,  and  furnishes 
material  for  "Episodes." 

Commission  house  of  Audubon  and  Bakewell  is  opened  by  the 
latter  in  New  Orleans,  but  is  quickly  suppressed  by  the 
war,  which  breaks  out  in  June. 

Spring. — Starts  a  retail  store,  on  his  own  account,  at  Hender- 
son. 

November  SO. — John  Woodhouse  Audubon,  born  at  "Meadow 
Brook"  farm,  Dr.  Adam  Rankin's  home  near  Henderson. 

1819-181$ 

Storekeeping  at  Henderson,  where  he  purchases  four  town 
lots  and  settles  down. 


1816 

March  16. — Enters  into  another  partnership  with  Bakewell; 
planning  to  build  a  steam  grist-  and  sawmill  at  Henderson, 
they  lease  land  on  the  river  front. 


1817 

Thomas  W.  Pears  joins  the  partnership,  and  the  steam  mill, 
which  later  became  famous,  is  erected.  (After  long  disuse 
or  conversion  to  other  purposes,  "Audubon's  Mill"  was 
finally  burned  to  the  ground  on  March  18, 1913.) 

1818 

Summer. — Receives  a  visit  from  Constantine  Samuel  Rafinesque, 
who  becomes  the  subject  of  certain  practical  jokes,  at 
zoology's  future  expense,  and  figures  in  a  later  "Episode." 


CHRONOLOGY  xxix 

1819 

After  repeated  change  of  partners,  the  mill  enterprise  fails, 
and  Audubon  goes  to  Louisville  jail  for  debt  ;  declares  him- 
self a  bankrupt,  and  saves  only  his  clothes,  his  drawings 
and  gun.  Resorts  to  doing  crayon  portraits  at  Shipping- 
port  and  Louisville,  where  he  is  immediately  successful. 

1819-18W 

At  Cincinnati,  to  fill  an  appointment  as  taxidermist  in  the 
Western  Museum,  just  founded  by  Dr.  Daniel  Drake;  set- 
tles with  his  family  and  works  three  or  four  months,  at  a 
salary  of  $125  a  month;  then  returns  to  portraits,  and 
starts  a  drawing  school. 

1820 

Decides  to  publish  his  "Ornithology,"  and  all  his  activities  are 
now  directed  to  this  end. 

October  1%.  —  Leaves  his  family,  and  with  Joseph  R.  Mason,  as 
pupil-assistant,  starts  without  funds  on  a  long  expedition 
down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers,  to  New  Orleans, 
hoping  to  visit  Arkansas,  and  intending  to  explore  the 
country  for  birds,  while  living  by  his  talents  :  from  this 
time  keeps  a  regular  journal  and  works  systematically. 


January  7.  —  Enters  New  Orleans  with  young  Mason  without 
enough  money  to  pay  for  a  night's  lodging. 

February  17.  —  Sends  his  wife  20  drawings,  including  the  famous 
Turkey  Hen,  Great-footed  Hawk,  and  White-headed 
Eagle. 

Obtains  a  few  drawing  pupils  ;  is  recommended  by  John  Vander- 
lyn  and  Governor  Robertson,  but  lives  from  hand  to  mouth 
until  June  16,  when  Audubon  and  Mason  leave  for  Ship- 
pingport;  a  fellow  passenger,  Mrs.  James  Pirrie,  of  West 
Feliciana,  offers  Audubon  a  position  as  tutor  to  her  daugh- 
ter, and  with  Mason  he  settles  on  her  plantation  at  St. 
Francisville,  Bayou  Sara,  where  he  remains  nearly  five 
months  ;  some  of  his  finest  drawings  are  made  at  this  time. 


xxx       AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

October  81. — Leaves  abruptly  and  returns  with  Mason  to  New 
Orleans,  where  he  again  becomes  a  drawing  teacher,  and 
resumes  his  studies  of  birds  with  even  greater  avidity. 

December. — Is  joined  by  his  family,  and  winter  finds  them  in 
dire  straits. 


March  16. — To  Natchez  with  Mason,  paying  their  passage  by 
doing  portraits  of  the  captain  and  his  wife;  while  on  the 
way  finds  that  many  of  his  drawings  have  been  seriously 
damaged  by  gunpowder;  teaches  French,  drawing  and 
dancing  at  Natchez,  and  Washington,  Mississippi. 

July  %3. — Parts  with  Mason,  after  giving  him  his  gun,  paper 
and  chalks,  with  which  to  work  his  way  north. 

September. — Mrs.  Audubon,  who  was  acting  as  governess  in  a 
family  at  New  Orleans,  joins  him  at  Natchez,  where  she 
obtains  a  similar  position. 

Receives  his  first  lessons  in  the  use  of  oils  from  John  Stein, 
itinerant  portrait  painter,  in  Natchez,  at  close  of  this 
year. 

1823 

January. — Mrs.  Audubon  is  engaged  by  the  Percys,  of  West 
Feliciana  parish,  Louisiana,  and  starts  a  private  school  at 
"Beechwoods,"  belonging  to  their  plantation,  in  St.  Fran- 
cisville,  where  she  remains  five  years. 

March. — Audubon  leaves  Natchez  with  John  Stein  and  Victor 
on  a  painting  tour  of  the  South,  but  meeting  with  little  suc- 
cess, they  disband  at  New  Orleans;  visits  his  wife,  and 
spends  part  of  summer  in  teaching  her  pupils  music  and 
drawing. 

Adrift  again;  both  he  and  Victor  are  taken  ill  with  fever  at 
Natchez,  but  when  nursed  back  to  health  by  Mrs.  Audu- 
bon, they  return  with  her  to  "Beechwoods." 

September  30. — Determined  to  visit  Philadelphia  in  the  inter- 
ests of  his  "Ornithology,"  he  sends  on  his  drawings  and 
goes  to  New  Orleans  for  references. 

October  3. — Starts  with  Victor  for  Louisville,  walking  part  of 
the  way. 


CHRONOLOGY  xxxi 

1823-1824 

Winter  spent  at  Shippingport,  where  Victor  becomes  a  clerk 

to  his  uncle,  Nicholas  A.  Berthoud. 
Paints  portraits,  panels  on  river  boats,  and  even  street  signs, 

to  earn  a  living. 

1824 

To  Philadelphia,  to  find  patrons  or  a  publisher;  thwarted;  is 
advised  to  take  his  drawings  to  Europe,  where  the  engrav- 
ing could  be  done  in  superior  style ;  befriended  by  Charles 
L.  Bonaparte,  Edward  Harris,  Richard  Harlan,  Mr.  Fair- 
man,  and  Thomas  Sully,  who  gives  him  free  tuition  in  oils. 

August  1. — Starts  for  New  York,  with  letters  to  Gilbert  Stuart, 
Washington  Allston,  and  Samuel  L.  Mitchell ;  is  kindly  re- 
ceived and  made  a  member  of  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  His- 
tory. 

August  15. — To  Albany,  Rochester,  Buffalo,  Niagara  Falls, 
Meadville,  and  Pittsburgh,  taking  deck  passage  on  boats, 
tramping,  and  paying  his  way  by  crayon  portraits. 

September. — Leaves  Pittsburgh  on  exploring  tour  of  Lakes  On- 
tario and  Champlain  for  birds;  decides  on  his  future 
course. 

October  24. — Returns  to  Pittsburgh,  and  descends  the  Ohio  in 
a  skiff ;  is  stranded  without  a  cent  at  Cincinnati ;  visits  Vic- 
tor at  Shippingport,  and  reaches  his  wife  in  St.  Francis- 
ville,  Bayou  Sara,  November  24. 


18*5-1886 

Teaches  at  St.  Francisville,  and  gives  dancing  lessons  at  Wood- 
ville,  Mississippi,  to  raise  funds  to  go  to  Europe. 

1826 

May  17. — Sails  with  his  drawings  on  the  cotton  schooner  Delos, 
bound  for  Liverpool,  where  he  lands,  a  total  stranger,  on 
July  21. 


xxxii     AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

In  less  than  a  week  is  invited  to  exhibit  his  drawings  at  the 
Royal  Institution,  and  is  at  once  proclaimed  as  a  great 
American  genius. 

Exhibits  at  Manchester,  but  with  less  success. 

Plans  to  publish  his  drawings,  to  be  called  The  Birds  of  Amer- 
ica, in  parts  of  five  plates  each,  at  2  guineas  a  part,  all  to 
be  engraved  on  copper,  to  the  size  of  life,  and  colored  after 
his  originals.  The  number  of  parts  was  at  first  fixed  at  80, 
and  the  period  of  publication  at  14  years ;  eventually  there 
were  87  parts,  of  435  plates,  representing  over  a  thousand 
individual  birds  as  well  as  thousands  of  American  trees, 
shrubs,  flowers,  insects  and  other  animals  of  the  entire  con- 
tinent; the  cost  in  England  was  £174,  which  was  raised  by 
the  duties  to  $1,000  in  America. 

Paints  animal  pictures  to  pay  his  way,  and  opens  a  subscription 
book. 

October  26. — Reaches  Edinburgh,  where  his  pictures  attract 
the  attention  of  the  ablest  scientific  and  literary  characters 
of  the  day,  and  he  is  patronized  by  the  aristocracy. 

November,  early. — William  Home  Lizars  begins  the  engraving 
of  his  first  plates  at  Edinburgh,  and  on  the  28th,  shows 
him  the  proof  of  the  Turkey  Cock. 

Honors  come  to  him  rapidly,  and  he  is  soon  elected  to  mem- 
bership in  the  leading  societies  of  science  and  the  arts  in 
Great  Britain,  France  and  the  United  States. 


1827 

February  3. — Exhibits  the  first  number  of  his  engraved  plates 
at  the  Royal  Institution  of  Edinburgh. 

March  17. — Issues  his  "Prospectus,"  when  two  numbers  of  his 
Birds  are  ready. 

April  5. — Starts  for  London  with  numerous  letters  to  distin- 
guished characters  and  obtains  subscriptions  on  the  way. 

May  %1. — Reaches  London,  and  exhibits  his  plates  before  the 
Linnaean  and  Royal  Societies,  which  later  elect  him  to  fel- 
lowship. 

Lizars  throws  up  the  work  after  engraving  ten  plates,  and  it  is 
transferred  to  London,  where,  in  the  hands  of  Robert 


CHRONOLOGY  xxxiii 

Havell,  Junior,  it  is  new  born  and  brought  to  successful 

completion  eleven  years  later. 
Summer. — Affairs  at  a  crisis ;  resorts  to  painting  and  canvasses 

the  larger  cities. 
December. — Five  parts,  or  twenty-five  plates,  of  The  Birds  of 

America  completed. 

1828 

March. — Visits  Cambridge  and  Oxford  Universities;  though 
well  received,  is  disappointed  at  the  number  of  subscribers 
secured,  especially  at  Oxford. 

September  1. — To  Paris  with  William  Swainson;  remains  eight 
weeks,  and  obtains  13  subscribers ;  his  work  is  eulogized  by 
Cuvier  before  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  and  he  re- 
ceives the  personal  subscription,  as  well  as  private  commis- 
sions, from  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  afterwards  known  as 
Louis  Philippe. 


April  1. — Sails  from  Portsmouth  on  his  first  return  to  America 
from  England,  for  New  York,  where  he  lands  on  May  1. 

Summer. — Drawing  birds  at  Great  Egg  Harbor,  New  Jersey. 

September. — To  Mauch  Chunk,  and  paints  for  six  weeks  at  a 
lumberman's  cottage  in  the  Great  Pine  Woods. 

October. — Down  the  Ohio  to  Louisville,  where  he  meets  his  two 
sons,  one  of  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  five  years;  thence 
to  St.  Francisville,  Bayou  Sara,  where  he  joins  his  wife, 
from  whom  he  had  been  absent  nearly  three  years. 

1830 

January  1. — Starts  with  his  wife  for  Europe,  first  visiting  New 
Orleans,  Louisville,  Cincinnati,  Baltimore,  and  Washing- 
ton, where  he  meets  the  President,  Andrew  Jackson,  and  is 
befriended  by  Edward  Everett,  who  becomes  one  of  his  first 
American  subscribers. 

April  1. — Sails  with  Mrs.  Audubon  from  New  York  for  Liver- 
pool. Settles  in  London ;  takes  his  seat  in  the  Royal  Soci- 


xxxiv    AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

ety,  to  which  he  was  elected  on  the  19th  of  March ;  resumes 
his  painting,  and  in  midsummer  starts  with  his  wife  on  a 
canvassing  tour  of  the  provincial  towns;  invites  William 
Swainson  to  assist  him  in  editing  his  letterpress,  but  a  dis- 
agreement follows. 

Changes  his  plans,  and  settles  again  in  Edinburgh ;  meets  Wil- 
liam MacGillivray,  who  undertakes  to  assist  him  with  his 
manuscript,  and  together  they  begin  the  first  volume  of 
the  Ornithological  Biography  in  October. 


1831-1839 

The  Ornithological  Biography,  in  five  volumes,  published  at 
Edinburgh,  and  partly  reissued  in  Philadelphia  and  Bos- 
ton. 

1831-1834 

In  America,  exploring  the  North  and  South  Atlantic  coasts 
for  birds. 


1831 

March. — First  volume  of  the  Ornithological  Biography  pub- 
lished, representing  the  text  of  the  first  100  double-ele- 
phant folio  plates. 

April  15. — Returns  with  his  wife  to  London. 

May-July. — Visits  Paris  again  in  the  interests  of  his  publica- 
tions. 

August  2. — Starts  with  his  wife  on  his  second  journey  from 
England  to  America,  and  lands  in  New  York  on  Septem- 
ber 4. 

Plans  to  visit  Florida  with  two  assistants,  and  obtains  prom- 
ise of  aid  from  the  Government. 

October-November. — At  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  where  he 
meets  John  Bachman  and  is  taken  into  his  home. 

November  15. — Sails  with  his  assistants  in  the  government 
schooner  Agnes  for  St.  Augustine. 


CHRONOLOGY  xxxv 

1832 

April  15. — In  revenue  cutter  Marion  begins  exploration  of  the 

east  coast  of  Florida;  proceeds  to  Key  West,  and  later 

returns  to  Savannah  and  Charleston. 
Rejoins  his  family  at  Philadelphia,  and  goes  to  Boston;  there 

meets  Dr.  George  Parkman,  and  makes  many  friends. 
August. — Explores  the  coasts  of  Maine  and  New  Brunswick, 

and  ascends  the  St.  John  River  for  birds. 
Returns  to  Boston,  and  sends  his  son  Victor  to  England  to  take 

charge  of  his  publications. 

1832-1833 

Winter. — In  Boston,  where  he  is  attacked  by  a  severe  illness 
induced  by  overwork;  quickly  recovers  and  plans  expedi- 
tion to  Labrador. 

1833 

June  6. — Sails  from  Eastport  for  the  Labrador  with  five  assist- 
ants, including  his  son,  John  Woodhouse  Audubon,  in 
the  schooner  Ripley  chartered  at  his  own  expense. 

August  31. — Returns  to  Eastport  laden  with  spoils,  including 
few  new  birds  but  many  drawings. 

September  7. — Reaches  New  York  and  plans  an  expedition  to 
Florida. 

September  25. — Visits  Philadelphia  and  is  arrested  for  debt,  an 
echo  of  his  business  ventures  in  Kentucky;  obtains  sub- 
scribers at  Baltimore,  and  in  Washington  meets  Washing- 
ton Irving,  who  assists  him  in  obtaining  government  aid; 
finds  patrons  at  Richmond  and  at  Columbia,  South  Caro- 
lina. 

October  24. — Reaches  Charleston  and  changes  his  plans;  with 
his  wife  and  son  passes  the  winter  at  the  Bachman  home, 
engaged  in  hunting,  drawing  and  writing. 

1834 

The  number  of  his  American  subscribers  reaches  62. 

April  16. — Sails  with  his  wife  and  son  on  the  packet  North 

America  from  New  York  to  England  with  large  collections. 
Settles  again  in  Edinburgh,  and  begins  second  volume  of  his 

Biography,  which  is  published  in  December. 


xxxvi    AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

1836 

Many  drawings,  papers  and  books  lost  by  fire  in  New  York. 
Part  of  summer,  autumn  and  winter  in  Edinburgh,  where  the 

third  volume  of  his  Ornithological  Biography  is  issued  in 

December. 

1836 

Audubon's  two  sons,  who  have  become  his  assistants,  tour  the 
Continent  for  five  months,  traveling  and  painting. 

August  2. — Sails  from  Portsmouth  on  his  third  journey  from 
England  to  the  United  States;  lands  in  New  York  on 
Sept.  6  and  canvasses  the  city. 

September  13. — Hurries  to  Philadelphia  to  obtain  access  to  the 
Nuttall-Townsend  collection  of  birds,  recently  brought 
from  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  Pacific  Coast ;  is  rebuffed, 
and  bitter  rivalries  ensue;  Edward  Harris  offers  to  buy 
the  collection  outright  for  his  benefit. 

September  W. — Starts  on  a  canvassing  tour  to  Boston,  where 
he  meets  many  prominent  characters,  and  obtains  a  letter 
of  commendation  from  Daniel  Webster,  who  writes  his 
name  in  his  subscription  book.  Visits  Salem,  where  sub- 
scribers are  also  obtained ;  meets  Thomas  M.  Brewer,  and 
Thomas  Nuttall,  who  offers  him  his  new  birds  brought 
from  the  West. 

October  10. — Is  visited  by  Washington  Irving,  who  gives  him 
letters  to  President  Van  Buren  and  recommends  his  work 
to  national  patronage. 

October  15. — Returns  to  Philadelphia,  where  attempts  to  obtain 
permission  to  describe  the  new  birds  in  the  Nuttall-Town- 
send collection  are  renewed ;  he  is  finally  permitted  to  pur- 
chase duplicates  and  describe  the  new  forms  under  cer- 
tain conditions. 

November  10. — To  Washington,  to  present  his  credentials,  and 
is  promised  government  aid  for  the  projected  journey  to 
Florida  and  Texas. 

1836-1837 

Winter. — Spent  with  Bachman  at  Charleston,  in  waiting  for 
his  promised  vessel;  makes  drawings  of  Nuttall's  and 
Townsend's  birds,  and  plans  for  a  work  on  the  Quadrupeds 
of  North  America. 


CHRONOLOGY  xxxvii 

1837 

Spring. — Starts  overland  with  Edward  Harris  and  John  W. 
Audubon  for  New  Orleans ;  there  meets  the  revenue  cutter 
Campbell,  and  in  her  and  her  tender,  the  Crusader,  the 
party  proceeds  as  far  as  Galveston,  Texas ;  visits  President 
Sam  Houston. 

May  18. — Leaves  for  New  Orleans,  and  on  June  8  reaches 
Charleston.  John  Woodhouse  Audubon  is  married  to 
Bachman's  eldest  daughter,  Maria  Rebecca. 

To  Washington,  and  meets  President  Martin  Van  Buren. 

July  16. — Sails  with  his  son  and  daughter-in-law  on  the  packet 
England  from  New  York ;  reaches  Liverpool  on  August  2d, 
and  on  the  7th  is  in  London. 

The  panic  of  this  year  causes  loss  of  many  subscribers,  but 
Audubon  decides  to  extend  The  Birds  of  America  to  87 
parts,  in  order  to  admit  every  new  American  bird  discov- 
ered up  to  that  time. 


1838 

June  20. — Eighty-seventh  part  of  The  Birds  of  America  pub- 
lished, thus  completing  the  fourth  volume  and  concluding 
the  work,  which  was  begun  at  Edinburgh  in  the  autumn  of 
1826. 

Summer. — By  way  of  a  holiday  celebration  tours  the  High- 
lands of  Scotland  with  his  family  and  William  MacGilli- 
vray. 

Autumn. — To  Edinburgh,  where,  with  the  assistance  of  Mac- 
Gillivray,  the  fourth  volume  of  his  Biography  is  issued  in 
November. 

1839 

May. — Fifth  and  concluding  volume  of  the  Ornithological  Bi- 
ography is  published  at  Edinburgh.  A  Synopsis  of  the 
Birds  of  North  America,  which  immediately  follows,  brings 
his  European  life  and  labors  to  a  close. 


xxxviii     AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

Late  summer. — Returns  with  his  family  to  New  York,  and  set- 
tles at  86  White  Street.  Victor,  who  preceded  his  father 
to  America,  is  married  to  Mary  Eliza  Bachman. 

Projects  at  once  a  small  or  "miniature"  edition  of  his  Orni- 
thology, and  begins  work  on  the  Quadrupeds.  Collabora- 
tion of  Bachman  in  this  project  is  later  secured. 


1840-1844 

First  octavo  edition  of  The  Birds  of  America  is  published  at 
Philadelphia,  in  seven  volumes,  with  lithographic,  colored 
plates  and  meets  with  unprecedented  success ;  issued  to 
subscribers  in  100  parts,  of  five  plates  each  with  text,  at 
one  dollar  a  part. 

1840 

June. — Begins  a  correspondence  with  young  Spencer  F.  Baird, 
which  leads  to  an  intimate  friendship  of  great  mutual 
benefit,  Baird  discovering  new  birds  and  sending  him 
many  specimens. 

1841 

Purchases  land  on  the  Hudson,  in  Carmansville,  at  the  present 
157th  Street,  and  begins  to  build  a  house. 

July  29. — Writes  to  Spencer  F.  Baird  that  he  was  then  as  anx- 
ious about  the  publication  of  the  Quadrupeds  as  he  ever 
was  about  procuring  birds. 


18J& 

April. — Occupies  his  estate,  now  included  in  the  realty  section 
of  upper  New  York  City  called  Audubon  Park,  which  he 
deeded  to  his  wife  and  named  for  her  "Minnie's  Land." 

September  12. — Starts  on  a  canvassing  tour  of  Canada,  going 
as  far  north  as  Quebec,  and  returns  well  pleased  with  his 
success,  after  spending  a  month  and  traveling  1,500  miles. 

Plans  for  his  western  journey  nearly  completed. 


CHRONOLOGY  xxxix 

1843 

March  11.  —  At  fifty-eight,  sets  out  with  four  companions  for 
the  region  of  the  Upper  Missouri  and  Yellowstone  Rivers, 
but  is  unable  to  attain  his  long  desired  goal,  the  Rocky 
Mountains. 

November.  —  Returns  with  many  new  birds  and  mammals. 

1845-1846 

The  Viviparous  Quadrupeds  of  North  America,  in  collabora- 
tion with  the  Rev.  John  Bachman,  issued  to  subscribers 
in  30  parts  of  five  plates  each,  without  letterpress,  making 
two  volumes,  imperial  folio,  at  $300.00. 

John  W.  Audubon,  traveling  in  Texas,  to  collect  materials  for 
his  father's  work. 

1845 

Engrossed  with  drawings  of  the  Quadrupeds,  in  which  he  re- 

ceives efficient  aid  from  his  sons. 
July  19.  —  Copper  plates  of  The  Birds  of  America  injured  by 

fire  in  New  York. 
December  24>  —  Bachman,  his   collaborator,   issues   ultimatum 

through  Harris,  but  work  on  the  Quadrupeds,  which  had 

come  to  a  stand,  is  resumed. 


John  W.  Audubon  in  England,  painting  subjects  for  the  illus- 
tration of  the  Quadrupeds  of  North  America. 

1846-1854 

The  Viviparous  Quadrupeds  of  North  America,  in  collabora- 
tion with  John  Bachman,  published  in  three  volumes, 
octavo,  text  only,  by  J.  J.  and  V.  G.  Audubon;  volume  i 
(1847)  only  appeared  during  the  naturalist's  lifetime. 


xl          AUDUBON  THE  NATURALIST 

1847 
Audubon's  powers  begin  to  weaken  and  rapidly  fail. 

1848 

February  8. — John  W.  Audubon  joins  a  California  company 
organized  by  Colonel  James  Watson  Webb,  and  starts 
for  the  gold  fields,  but  his  party  meets  disaster  in  the 
valley  of  the  Rio  Grande;  he  leads  a  remnant  to  their 
destination  and  returns  in  the  following  year. 

1851 

January  27. — Jean  Jacques  Fougere  Audubon  dies  at  "Min- 
nie's Land,"  before  completing  his  sixty-sixth  year. 


AUDUBON 

THE 

NATURALIST 


Nothing  extenuate, 
Nor  set  down  aught  in  malice.  .  .  . 

SHAKESPEARE,  Othello  to  his  biographers. 

Time,  whose  tooth  gnaws  away  everything  else,  is  power- 
less against  truth. 

HUXLEY. 

What  a  curious,  interesting  book,  a  biographer,  well  ac- 
quainted with  my  life,  could  write;  it  is  still  more  wonderful 
and  extraordinary  than  that  of  my  father. 

AUDUBON,  in  letter  to  his  wife, 

March  12,  1828. 


AUDUBON 

THE 

NATURALIST 

CHAPTER  I 

INTRODUCTION 

Audubon's  growing  fame — Experience  in  Paris  in  1828 — Cuvier's  patron- 
age— Audubon's  publications — His  critics — His  talents  and  accom- 
plishments— His  Americanism  and  honesty  of  purpose — His  foibles 
and  faults — Appreciations  and  monuments — The  Audubon  Societies — 
Biographies  and  autobiography — Robert  Buchanan  and  the  true  his- 
tory of  his  Life  of  Audubon. 

It  is  more  than  three-quarters  of  a  century  since 
Audubon's  masterpiece,  The  Birds  of  America,  was 
completed,  and  two  generations  have  occupied  the  stage 
since  the  "American  Woodsman"  quietly  passed  away 
at  his  home  on  the  Hudson  River.  These  generations 
have  seen  greater  changes  in  the  development  and  ap- 
plication of  natural  science  and  in  the  spread  of  sci- 
entific knowledge  among  men  than  all  those  which  pre- 
ceded them.  Theories  of  nature  come  and  go  but  the 
truth  abides,  and  Audubon's  "book  of  Nature,"  repre- 
sented by  his  four  massive  volumes  of  hand-engraved 
and  hand-colored  plates,  still  remains  "the  most  mag- 
nificent monument  which  has  yet  been  raised  to  ornithol- 
ogy," as  Cuvier  said  of  the  parts  which  met  his  aston- 
ished gaze  in  1828;  while  his  graphic  sketches  of  Ameri- 
can life  and  scenery  and  his  vivid  portraits  of  birds, 

i 


2  AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

drawn  with  the  pen,  can  be  read  with  as  much  pleasure 
as  when  the  last  volume  of  his  Ornithological  Biography 
left  the  press  in  1839.  This  appears  the  more  remark- 
able when  we  reflect  that  Audubon's  greatest  working 
period,  from  1820  to  1840,  belonged  essentially  to  the 
eighteenth  century,  for  the  real  transition  to  the  nine- 
teenth century  did  not  begin  in  England  before  1837; 
then  came  the  dawn  of  the  newer  day  that  was  to  wit- 
ness those  momentous  changes  in  communication  and 
travel,  in  education,  democracy  and  ideas,  which  char- 
acterize life  in  the  modern  world. 

When  Audubon  left  London  for  Paris  on  Septem- 
ber 1,  1828,  it  took  him  four  days  by  coach,  boat  and 
diligence  to  reach  the  French  capital,  a  journey  which 
in  normal  times  is  now  made  in  less  than  eight  hours. 
Mail  then  left  the  Continent  for  England  on  but  four 
days  in  the  week,  and  to  post  a  single  letter  cost  twenty- 
four  sous.  Writing  at  Edinburgh  a  little  earlier  (De- 
cember 21,  1826),  Audubon  recorded  that  on  that  day 
he  had  received  from  De  Witt  Clinton  and  Thomas 
Sully,  in  America,  letters  in  answer  to  his  own,  in  forty- 
two  days,  and  added  that  it  seemed  absolutely  impossi- 
ble that  the  distance  could  be  covered  so  rapidly.  This 
was  indeed  remarkable,  since  the  first  vessel  to  cross 
the  Atlantic  wholly  under  its  own  steam,  in  1838,  re- 
quired seventeen  days  to  make  the  passage  from  New 
York  to  Queenstown. 

"Walking  in  Paris,"  said  Audubon  in  1828,  "is  disa- 
greeable in  the  extreme;  the  streets  are  paved,  but  with 
scarcely  a  sidewalk,  and  a  large  gutter  filled  with  dirty 
black  water  runs  through  the  middle  of  each,  and  peo- 
ple go  about  without  any  kind  of  order,  in  the  center, 
or  near  the  houses."  The  Paris  of  that  day  contained 
but  one-fourth  the  number  of  its  present  population. 


INTRODUCTION  3 

Having  reaped  the  fruits  of  the  Revolution,  it  was 
enjoying  peace  under  the  Restoration;  moreover,  it 
was  taking  a  leading  part  in  the  advancement  of  natu- 
ral science,  of  which  Cuvier  was  the  acknowledged  dean. 
It  was  but  a  year  before  the  death  of  blind  and  aged 
Lamarck,  neglected  and  forgotten  then,  but  destined 
after  the  lapse  of  three-quarters  of  a  century  to  have  a 
monument  raised  to  his  memory  by  contributions  from 
every  part  of  Europe  and  America,  and  to  be  recog- 
nized as  the  first  great  evolutionist  of  the  modern  school. 
Audubon  had  not  seen  his  ancestral  capital  for  up- 
wards of  thirty  years,  not  since  as  a  young  man  he  was 
sent  from  his  father's  home  near  Nantes  to  study  draw- 
ing in  the  studio  of  David,  at  the  Louvre.  Though  in 
the  land  of  his  fathers  and  speaking  his  native  tongue, 
his  visit  was  tinged  with  disappointment.  At  the  age 
of  forty-three  he  was  engaged  in  an  enterprise  which 
stands  unique  in  the  annals  of  science  and  literature. 
But  fifty  plates,  or  ten  numbers,  of  his  incomparable 
series  had  been  engraved,  and  this  work  had  then  but 
thirty  subscribers.  That  he  was  bound  to  sink  or  swim 
he  knew  full  well.  On  August  30  he  wrote:  "My 
subscribers  are  yet  far  from  enough  to  pay  my  ex- 
penses, and  my  purse  suffers  severely  from  want  of 
greater  patronage."  This  want  he  had  hoped  to  satisfy 
in  France,  but  after  an  experience  of  eight  weeks,  and 
an  expenditure,  as  he  records,  of  forty  pounds,  he  was 
obliged  to  leave  Paris  with  only  thirteen  additional 
names  on  his  list.  Yet  among  the  latter,  it  should  be 
noticed,  were  those  of  George  Cuvier,  the  Duke  of  Or- 
leans and  King  Charles  X,  while  six  copies  had  been 
ordered  by  the  Minister  of  the  Interior  for  distribution 
among  the  more  important  libraries  of  Paris.  More- 
over, he  had  won  the  friendship  and  encomiums  of 


4  AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Cuvier,  which  later  proved  of  the  greatest  value.  The 
savants  who  gathered  about  him  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  over  which  Cuvier  pre- 
sided, exclaimed,  "Beautiful!  Very  beautiful!  What 
a  work!",  but  "What  a  price!",  and  acknowledged  that 
only  in  England  could  he  find  the  necessary  support. 
Audubon  concluded  that  he  was  fortunate  in  having 
taken  his  drawings  to  London  to  be  engraved,  for  the 
smaller  cost  of  copper  on  that  side  of  the  Channel  was 
an  item  which  could  not  be  overlooked.  Little  did  he 
dream  that  commercial  greed  for  the  baser  metal  would 
send  most  of  his  great  plates  to  the  melting  pot  half 
a  century  later.  No  doubt  he  was  right  also  in  con- 
cluding that  had  he  followed  certain  advisers  in  first  tak- 
ing his  publication  to  France,  it  would  have  perished 
"like  a  flower  in  October."  It  should  be  added  that 
King  Charles'  subscription  expired  with  his  fall  two 
years  later,  while  that  of  Cuvier  ended  with  his  death 
in  1832. 

Audubon  was  one  of  those  rare  spirits  whose  post- 
humous fame  has  grown  with  the  years.  He  did  one 
thing  in  particular,  that  of  making  known  to  the  world 
the  birds  of  his  adopted  land,  and  did  it  so  well  that 
his  name  will  be  held  in  everlasting  remembrance.  His 
great  folios  are  now  the  property  of  the  rich  or  of  those 
fortunate  institutions  which  have  either  received  them 
by  gift  or  were  enrolled  among  his  original  subscribers, 
and  wherever  found  they  are  treasured  as  the  greatest 
of  show  books.  The  sale  of  a  perfect  copy  of  the  Birds 
at  the  present  day  is  something  of  an  event,  for  it  com- 
mands from  $3,000  to  $5,000,  or  from  three  to  five  times 
its  original  cost.  All  of  Audubon's  publications  have 
not  only  become  rare  but  have  increased  greatly  in  price ; 
they  are  what  dealers  call  a  good  investment,  an  experi- 


INTRODUCTION  5 

ence  which  probably  no  other  large,  illustrated,  scien- 
tific or  semi-scientific  works  have  enjoyed  to  a  like  de- 
gree. 

As  has  been  said  of  Prince  Henry  the  Navigator, 
though  in  different  words,  John  James  Audubon  was 
one  of  those  who  by  a  simple-hearted  life  of  talent,  de- 
votion and  enthusiasm  have  freed  themselves  from  the 
law  of  death.  Audubon  was  a  man  of  many  sides,  and 
his  fame  is  due  to  a  rare  combination  of  those  talents 
and  powers  which  were  needed  to  accomplish  the  work 
that  he  finally  set  out  to  do.  His  personality  was  most 
winning,  his  individuality  strong,  and  his  long  life,  bent 
for  the  most  part  to  attain  definite  ends,  was  checkered, 
adventurous  and  romantic  beyond  the  common  lot  of 
men. 

Few  men  outside  of  public  life  have  been  praised 
more  lavishly  than  Audubon  during  his  active  career. 
Though  he  had  but  few  open  enemies,  those  few,  as  if 
conscious  of  the  fact,  seemed  to  assail  him  the  more 
harshly  and  persistently.  In  reading  all  that  has  been 
said  about  this  strenuous  worker  both  before  and  since 
his  death,  one  is  continually  struck  by  the  perverse  or 
contrary  opinions  that  are  often  expressed.  He  was 
not  this  and  he  was  not  that,  but  he  was  simply  Audu- 
bon, and  there  has  been  no  one  else  who  has  at  all  closely 
resembled  him  or  with  whom  he  can  be  profitably  com- 
pared. One  charges  that  he  did  not  write  the  books 
which  bear  his  name.  Another  complains  that  he  was 
no  philosopher,  and  was  not  a  man  of  science  at  heart; 
that  he  was  vain,  elegant,  inclined  to  be  selfish,  inconse- 
quential, and  that  he  reverenced  the  great ;  that  he  shot 
birds  for  sport;  that  he  was  a  plagiarist;  that  he  was 
the  king  of  nature  fakirs  and  a  charlatan;  that  he  never 
propounded  or  answered  a  scientific  question;  and, 


6  AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

finally,  that  though  at  times  he  wrote  a  graphic  and 
charming  style  and  showed  occasional  glimpses  of  pro- 
phetic insight,  he  cannot  be  trusted;  besides,  he  might 
have  been  greatly  indebted  to  unacknowledged  aid  re- 
ceived from  others. 

These  or  similar  charges  were  brought  against 
Audubon  during  his  lifetime,  as  they  have  been  made 
against  many  another  who  has  emerged  quickly  from 
obscurity  into  world-wide  renown.  Many  attacks  upon 
his  character  were  assiduously  repelled  by  his  friends, 
though  seldom  noticed  publicly  by  himself;  as  if  con- 
scious of  his  own  integrity,  he  was  content  to  await  the 
verdict  of  time,  and  time  in  America  has  not  been  recre- 
ant to  his  trust.  Some  of  these  charges  it  may  be  neces- 
sary to  examine  at  length,  if  found  to  be  justified  in 
any  degree,  while  others  may  be  brushed  aside  as  un- 
worthy of  even  passing  consideration.  Evidence  of 
every  sort  is  now  ample,  as  it  seems,  to  enable  us  to  do 
justice  to  all  concerned,  to  penetrate  the  veil  that  has 
hidden  much  of  the  real  Audubon  from  the  world,  and 
to  place  the  worker  and  the  man  in  the  fuller  light  of 
day. 

The  reader  who  follows  this  history  may  expect  to 
find  certain  blemishes  in  Audubon's  character,  for  the 
most  admirable  of  men  have  possessed  faults,  whether 
conscious  of  them  or  not.  The  lights  in  any  picture 
would  lose  all  value  were  the  shadows  wholly  with- 
drawn. If  we  blinded  ourselves  to  every  fault  and  foi- 
ble of  such  a  man,  we  might  produce  a  sketch  more 
pleasing  to  certain  readers,  but  it  would  lack  the  vitality 
which  truth  alone  can  supply.  The  more  carefully  his 
character  is  studied,  however,  as  Macaulay  said  of  Addi- 
son,  the  more  it  will  appear,  in  the  language  of  the  old 
anatomists,  "sound  in  the  noble  parts,  free  from  all 


INTRODUCTION  7 

taint  of  perfidy,  of  cowardice,  of  cruelty,  of  ingrati- 
tude, of  envy." 

In  this  attempt  to  present  a  true  and  unbiased 
estimate  of  Audubon  in  relation  to  his  time,  we  have 
the  advantage  of  dealing  with  a  well  rounded  and  com- 
pleted life,  not  with  a  broken  or  truncated  one.  He 
impressed  many  of  his  contemporaries  in  both  Europe 
and  America  with  the  force  of  his  contagious  enthusi- 
asm and  prolific  genius,  and  their  opinions  have  been 
recorded  with  remarkable  generosity.  On  the  other 
hand,  "if  a  life  be  delayed  till  interest  and  envy  are  at 
an  end,"  said  an  excellent  authority,1  "we  may  hope  for 
impartiality,  but  must  expect  little  intelligence,"  because 
the  minute  details  of  daily  life  are  commonly  so  vola- 
tile and  evanescent  as  to  "soon  escape  the  memory,  and 
are  rarely  transmitted  by  tradition."  Such  details, 
which  often  reveal  character  while  they  add  color  and 
life  to  the  narrative,  have  been  amply  supplied,  as  the 
reader  will  find,  by  Audubon  himself,  not  only  in  his 
journals  and  private  letters  already  published  but  in 
the  numerous  documents  of  every  sort  that  are  now 
brought  to  light. 

If  "the  true  man  is  to  be  revealed,  if  we  are  to  know 
him  as  he  was,  and  especially  if  we  are  to  know  the 
influences  that  molded  him  and  so  profoundly  affected 
him  for  good  or  evil,  we  must  begin  at  the  beginning 
and  follow  him  through  his  struggles,  his  temptations, 
his  triumphs."  It  might  be  better  to  start  "in  the 
cradle,"  or  even  forty  years  before  he  was  born,  for, 
as  modern  biology  teaches  us,  nature  is  stronger  than 
nurture  and  race  counts  for  much.  Certainly  this  man 
can  never  be  understood  if  removed  from  the  environ- 
ment which  time  and  circumstance  gave  him;  he  needs 

1  Samuel  Johnson,  The  Rambler,  No.  60. 


8  AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  historical  background,  furnished  in  part  by  his  con- 
temporaries, some  of  whom  were  rivals  with  whom  he 
had  often  to  struggle  to  make  his  way.  In  recounting 
this  history,  in  many  cases  hitherto  unwritten,  we  must 
recognize  the  proverbial  difficulty  of  tracing  human 
motives  to  their  proper  source,  and  endeavor  to  form 
no  harsh  judgments  without  ample  basis  in  docu- 
mentary or  other  evidence. 

No  more  ardent  and  loyal  American  than  John 
James  Audubon  ever  lived.  His  adopted  country, 
which  he  would  fain  have  believed  to  have  been  that 
of  his  actual  birth,  was  ever  his  chief  passion  and  pride, 
and  for  him  the  only  abode  of  sweet  content.  Few 
have  seen  more  of  it,  of  its  diversified  races,  climates 
and  coasts,  its  grand  mountains,  its  noble  lakes  and 
rivers,  its  virgin  forests  and  interminable  prairies,  with 
all  the  marvelous  stores  of  animal  and  plant  life  which 
were  first  truly  revealed  to  the  pioneer  woodsman, 
artist  and  naturalist.  None  has  been  more  eager  to 
hand  down  to  posterity,  ere  it  be  too  late,  a  true  tran- 
script of  its  wild  and  untameable  nature  while,  as  he 
would  say,  still  fresh  from  the  Creator's  own  hand. 
Audubon's  beneficent  influence  during  his  long  en- 
forced residence  abroad,  as  a  representative  of  Ameri- 
can energy  and  capacity,  can  hardly  be  measured,  while 
in  his  own  land  few  were  more  potent  in  bringing  the 
nation  to  a  consciousness  of  its  unique  individuality  and 
power. 

Audubon,  as  has  been  said,  saw  nature  vividly  col- 
ored by  his  own  enthusiasm,  and  he  never  looked  at 
her  "through  the  spectacles  of  books."  His  writings, 
however  unpolished  or  written  with  whatever  degree 
of  speed,  have  the  peculiar  quality  of  awakening  en- 
thusiasm in  the  reader,  who,  like  the  youth  poring  over 


INTRODUCTION  9 

Robinson  Crusoe,,  feels  within  him  a  new  ardor,  in  this 
instance,  for  hunting  and  studying  birds  and  for  leading 
a  life  of  adventure  in  the  wilderness.  It  would  be  as 
unjust  to  judge  of  Audubon's  rare  abilities  as  a  de- 
scriptive writer  from  the  letters,  journal  jottings  and 
miscellaneous  extracts  given  in  this  work,  as  to  weigh 
his  accomplishments  as  an  artist  from  his  itinerary  por- 
traits or  his  early  sketches  of  animals  in  crayon  point 
and  pastel.  Those  cruder  products  of  his  pen  and  brush, 
however,  as  the  reader  will  find,  possess  a  high  degree 
of  interest  from  the  light  which  they  throw  on  the  de- 
velopment of  his  character  and  art,  as  well  as  from 
their  personal  and  historical  associations.  His  best  and 
only  finished  literary  work,  the  Ornithological  Biog- 
rapliy,  in  five  large  volumes,  with  the  revisions  and 
additions  which  later  appeared,  abound  in  animated 
pictures  of  primitive  nature  and  pioneer  life  in  America 
as  well  as  vivid  portraits  of  the  birds  and  other  charac- 
teristic animals. 

A  good  illustration  of  Audubon's  habit  of  blending 
his  own  experiences  with  his  biographies  of  birds  is 
found  in  the  introduction  to  his  account  of  the  Common 
Gannet : 

On  the  morning  of  the  14th  of  June  1833,  the  white  sails 
of  the  Ripley  were  spread  before  a  propitious  breeze,  and 
onward  she  might  be  seen  gaily  wending  her  way  towards  the 
shores  of  Labrador.  We  had  well  explored  the  Magdalene 
Islands,  and  were  anxious  to  visit  the  Great  Gannet  Rock, 
where,  according  to  our  pilot,  the  birds  from  which  it  derives 
its  name  bred.  For  several  days  I  had  observed  numerous  files 
proceeding  northward,  and  marked  their  mode  of  flight  while 
thus  travelling.  As  our  bark  dashed  through  the  heaving  bil- 
lows, my  anxiety  to  reach  the  desired  spot  increased.  At 
length,  about  ten  o'clock,  we  discerned  at  a  distance  a  white 


10         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

speck,  which  our  pilot  assured  us  was  the  celebrated  rock  of 
our  wishes.  After  a  while  I  could  distinctly  see  its  top  from 
the  deck,  and  thought  that  it  was  still  covered  with  snow  sev- 
eral feet  deep.  As  we  approached  it,  I  imagined  that  the  at- 
mosphere around  was  filled  with  flakes,  but  on  my  turning  to 
the  pilot,  who  smiled  at  my  simplicity,  I  was  assured  that  noth- 
ing was  in  sight  but  the  Gannets  and  their  island  home.  I 
rubbed  my  eyes,  took  up  my  glass,  and  saw  that  the  strange 
dimness  of  the  air  before  us  was  caused  by  the  innumerable 
birds,  whose  white  bodies  and  black-tipped  pinions  produced  a 
blended  tint  of  light-grey.  When  we  had  advanced  to  within 
half  a  mile,  this  magnificent  veil  of  floating  Gannets  was  easily 
seen,  now  shooting  upwards,  as  if  intent  on  reaching  the  sky, 
then  descending  as  if  to  join  the  feathered  masses  below,  and 
again  diverging  toward  either  side  and  sweeping  over  the  sur- 
face of  the  ocean.  The  Ripley  now  partially  furled  her  sails, 
and  lay  to,  when  all  on  board  were  eager  to  scale  the  abrupt 
side  of  the  mountain  isle,  and  satisfy  their  curiosity.2 

Audubon's  accounts  of  the  birds  are  copious,  inter- 
esting and  generally  accurate,  considering  the  time  and 
circumstances  in  which  they  were  produced.  When  at 
his  best,  his  pictures  were  marvels  of  fidelity  and  close 
observation,  and  in  some  of  his  studies  of  mammals,  like 
that  of  the  raccoon  (see  p.  182),  in  which  seemingly 
every  hair  is  carefully  rendered,  we  are  reminded  of 
the  work  of  the  old  Dutch  masters  and  of  Albrecht 
Diirer;  notwithstanding  such  attention  to  microscopic 
detail,  there  is  no  flatness,  but  the  values  of  light  and 
shade  are  perfectly  rendered.  In  his  historical  survey 
of  American  ornithology,  Elliott  Coues  was  fully  justi- 
fied in  designating  the  years  1824-1853  as  representing 
the  "Audubonian  Epoch,"  and  the  time  from  1834  to  its 
close  as  the  "Audubonian  Period."  "The  splendid 

2  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  iv,  p.  222. 


INTRODUCTION  11 

genius  of  the  man,  surmounting  every  difficulty  and  dis- 
couragement of  the  author,  had  found  and  claimed  its 
own.  .  .  .  Audubon  and  his  work  were  one;  he  lived 
in  his  work,  and  in  his  work  will  live  forever."  3 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Audubon  regarded  an  honest 
man  as  the  quintessence  of  God's  works,  and  though  he 
sometimes  set  down  statements  which  do  not  square 
with  known  facts,  this  was  often  the  result  of  lax  habits, 
or  of  saying  what  was  uppermost  in  his  mind  without 
retrospection  or  analysis.  When  memory  failed  or 
when  more  piquancy  and  color  were  needed,  he  may 
have  been  too  apt  to  resort  to  varnish,  but  for  every- 
thing written  on  the  spot  his  mind  was  as  truth-telling 
as  his  pictures.  In  considering  the  good  intent  of  the 
man,  his  extraordinary  capacity  for  taking  pains,  and 
his  vast  accomplishments,  criticism  on  this  score  seems 
rather  captious.  On  the  other  hand,  when  it  came  to 
dealing  with  his  own  early  life,  that  was  a  subject  upon 
which  he  reserved  the  right  to  speak  according  to  his 
judgment,  and  in  a  way  which  will  be  considered  later. 

Audubon  left  England  to  settle  his  family  finally 
in  America  in  the  autumn  of  1839,  when  he  was  fifty- 
four  years  old,  and  since  he  lived  but  twelve  years 
longer,  probably  few  are  now  living  who  retain  more 
than  a  childish  memory  of  his  appearance  in  advanced 
age.  Many  Londoners  will  recall  an  odd  character,  an 
aged  print  dealer  who  used  to  sit  alone,  like  a  hoary 
spider  in  its  web,  in  his  little  shop  in  Great  Russel 
Street,  close  to  the  British  Museum,  and  another  of 
similar  type,  who  may  still  haunt  a  better  known  land- 
mark, the  old  "naturalist's  shop"  in  Oxford  Street,  not 
far  from  Tottenham  Court  Road  and  but  a  min- 

8  Elliott  Coues,  Key  to  North  American  Birds,  4th  ed.,  p.  xxi  (Boston, 
1890). 


12         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ute's  walk  from  the  spot  where  most  of  Audubon's 
Birds  were  engraved.  Both  had  seen  the  naturalist 
walk  the  streets  of  London  and  had  known  him  in  busi- 
ness relations.  He  occasionally  strolled  into  the  old 
naturalist's  shop,  which  has  been  occupied  by  father  and 
son  for  nearly  a  century.  The  son,  then  a  young  clerk, 
is  now  (1913)  the  crabbed  veteran  who  still  waits  on 
customers  but  never  waits  long;  should  you  hazard  a 
question  before  making  a  purchase,  he  will  roar  like 
the  captain  of  a  ship  and  leave  you  to  your  own  devices ; 
but  show  him  money  and  the  change  in  his  demeanor 
is  wonderful;  his  hearing  improves,  his  tone  softens, 
and  he  may  recount  for  you  what  he  remembers  of 
times  long  past,  which  is  not  much.  Audubon  in  the 
thirties  seemed  to  him  like  an  aged  man,  an  impression 
quite  natural  to  a  youth.  He  also  remembered  seeing 
Charles  Waterton,  Audubon's  declared  enemy  and 
supercilious  critic,  William  Swainson,  his  one-time 
friend,  and  William  MacGillivray,  his  eminent  assist- 
ant; that  they  were  great  rivals  expressed  the  sum  of 
his  reflections.  He  recalled  the  time  when  Oxford 
Street  was  filled,  as  he  expressed  it,  with  horses  and 
donkeys,  and  of  course  knew  well  the  old  Zoological 
Gallery,  No.  79  Newman  Street,  in  which  for  a  time 
Robert  Havell  &  Son  conducted  a  shop  in  connection 
with  their  printing  and  engraving  establishment.  The 
latter,  when  moved  by  Robert  Havell,  Jr.,  to  No.  77 
Oxford  Street,  was  nearly  opposite  the  old  Pantheon, 
which  still  lingers,  and  not  far  from  the  corner  of 
Wrisley  Street,  the  present  site  of  Messrs.  Waring  & 
Gillow's  large  store. 

We  already  possess  several  biographies  of  Audu- 
bon, and  many  of  his  letters  of  a  personal  or  scientific 
interest  and  most  of  his  extant  journals,  though  but  a 


INTRODUCTION  13 

fraction  of  those  which  originally  existed,  have  been  pub- 
lished. "America,  my  Country,"  has  not  forgotten  him. 
Mount  Audubon  rises  on  the  northerly  bound  of  Colo- 
rado as  an  everlasting  reminder  of  the  last  and  grand- 
est of  all  his  journeys,  that  to  the  Missouri  River  in 
1843.  American  counties  and  towns,4  as  well  as  parks 
and  streets  in  American  cities,  bear  his  name.  At  least 
four  of  his  beloved  birds  have  been  dedicated  to  him. 
In  1885,  thirty- four  years  after  his  death,  the  New 
York  Academy  of  Sciences  began  a  popular  movement 
through  which  a  beautiful  cross  in  marble  was  raised  in 
1893  above  his  grave  in  Trinity  Cemetery.5  The  "one 
hundred  and  twenty-fifth  anniversary"  6  of  the  natural- 
ist's birth  was  celebrated  in  New  York  in  1905,  and  at 

4  Audubon,  in  Audubon  County,  Iowa,  in  Becker  County,  Minnesota, 
and  in  Wise   County,   Texas,  as  well   as   Audubon,  Montgomery  County, 
Pennsylvania,  in  which  his  old  farm,  "Mill  Grove,"  is  situated.     Audubon 
Avenue  is   the   first   of  the    subterranean   passages   which   lead    from   the 
entrance  of  Mammoth  Cave,  and  is  noted  for  its  swarms  of  bats.    Audubon 
Park,  New  York  City,  between  the  Hudson  River  and  Broadway  and  ex- 
tending from  156th,  to  160th  Streets,  embraces  a  part  of  "Minnie's  Land," 
the  naturalist's  old  Hudson  River  estate,  but  is  a  realty  designation  and  is 
now  almost  entirely  covered  with  buildings  (see  Chapter  XXXVI). 

5  The  Audubon  Monument  Committee  of  the  New  York  Academy  of 
Sciences  was  appointed  October  3,  1887,  and  made  its  final  report  in  1893, 
when  this  beautiful  memorial  was  formally  dedicated.     Subscriptions  from 
all* parts  of  the  United  States  amounted  to  $10,525.21.     The  monument  is 
a   Runic    cross    in    white    marble,    ornamented    with    American   birds    and 
mammals  which  Audubon  has   depicted,  and   surmounts   a   die   bearing  a 
portrait    of    the    naturalist,    modeled    from    Cruikshank's    miniature,    with 
suitable  inscriptions,  the  whole  being  supported  on  a  base  of  granite;  the 
total  height  is  nearly  26  feet,  and  the  weight  2  tons.     It  was  presented 
to  the  Corporation  of  Trinity  Parish  by  Professor  Thomas  Eggleston,  and 
received  by  Rev.  Dr.  Morgan  Dix.     The  cemetery  has  since  been  cut  in 
two  by  the  extension  of  Broadway ;  the  monument  is  in  the  northerly  section, 
close  to  the  parish  house  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Intercession. 

The  monument  at  New  Orleans,  mentioned  below,  was  erected  under 
the  auspices  of  the  Audubon  Association,  at  a  cost  of  $10,000,  most 
of  which  was  secured  through  the  efforts  of  Mrs.  J.  L.  Bradford,  $1,500 
having  been  contributed  by  residents  of  the  Crescent  City.  The  figure 
is  in  bronze,  and  stands  on  a  high  pedestal  of  Georgia  granite. 

The  beautiful  bust  of  Audubon  at  the  American  Museum  of  Natural 
History  is  by  William  Couper,  of  Newark,  N.  J. 

"As  will  later  appear,  this  was  in  reality  the  120th  anniversary. 


14         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  American  Museum  of  Natural  History  an  admirable 
marble  bust  of  Audubon  was  unveiled  on  a  notable  occa- 
sion, December  29,  1906,  when  similar  honors  were  paid 
to  Louis  Agassiz,  Spencer  Fullerton  Baird,  Edward 
Drinker  Cope,  James  Dwight  Dana,  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin, Joseph  Henry,  Joseph  Leidy,  John  Torrey,  and 
Alexander  von  Humboldt.  On  November  26,  1910,  a 
statue  of  Audubon,  after  an  admirable  design  by  the 
veteran  sculptor,  Edward  Virginius  Valentine,  of  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  was  unveiled  in  Audubon  Park,  New 
Orleans,  where  the  naturalist,  with  pencil  in  hand,  is 
represented  in  the  act  of  transferring  to  paper  the  like- 
ness of  a  favorite  subject.  He  also  occupies  a  niche  in 
the  Hall  of  Fame  at  New  York  University. 

In  recent  times  Audubon's  name  has  become  a  house- 
hold word  through  the  medium  of  the  most  effective 
instrument  which  has  yet  been  devised  for  the  conser- 
vation of  animal  life  in  this  or  any  country,  the  National 
Association  of  Audubon  Societies  for  the  Protection  of 
Wild  Birds  and  Animals.  This  has  become  the  coor- 
dinating center  for  the  spread  and  control  of  a  great 
national  movement  that  received  its  first  impulse  in 
1886.7  Launched  anew  ten  years  later,  it  has  advanced 

7  The  first  Audubon  Society,  devoted  to  the  interests  of  bird  pro- 
tection, was  organized  by  Dr.  George  Bird  Grinnell,  editor  of  Forest  and 
Stream,  in  1886,  and  16,000  members  were  enrolled  during  the  first  year; 
Dr.  Grinnell  was  also  the  father  of  the  Audubonian  Magazine  (see 
Bibliography,  No.  190),  which  made  its  first  appearance  in  January,  1887; 
by  the  middle  of  that  year  the  membership  in  the  new  society  had  in- 
creased to  38,000,  but  with  the  disappearance  of  the  Magazine  in  1889  the 
movement  languished  and  came  to  a  speedy  end.  In  1896  a  fresh  start 
was  taken  by  the  inauguration  of  State  societies  in  Massachusetts  and 
Pennsylvania,  and  the  movement  gathered  greater  force  through  the  in- 
auguration in  1899  of  the  admirably  conducted  magazine,  Bird-Lore,  as 
its  official  organ.  The  State  societies  were  federated  in  1902,  and  the 
National  Committee  then  created  gave  place  in  1905  to  the  National 
Association.  See  Gilbert  Trafton,  Bird  Friends,  for  an  excellent  summary 
of  the  work  of  the  Audubon  Societies,  and  the  "Twelfth  Annual  Report  of 
the  National  Association  of  Audubon  Societies,"  Bird-Lore,  vol.  xviii  (1916). 


INTRODUCTION  15 

with  ever  increasing  momentum,  until  now  it  is  the  gov- 
erning head  of  twenty-nine  distinct  State  societies,  as 
well  as  eighty-five  affiliated  clubs  and  similar  organiza- 
tions. In  1916  it  counted  a  life  membership  of  356, 
with  3,024  sustaining  members,  and  realized  a  total  in- 
come of  over  $100,000.  It  should  be  added  that  during 
the  past  six  years  over  2,900  Junior  Audubon  Clubs 
have  been  formed  in  the  schools,  through  which  nearly 
600,000  children  have  been  instructed  in  the  principles 
of  the  Audubon  Society.  Well  may  it  be  that  this  ad- 
mirable organization,  with  its  successful  efforts  for  re- 
medial legislation  in  state  and  nation ;  its  initiative,  with 
the  aid  of  the  National  Government,  in  establishing 
Federal  reservations  or  sanctuaries  for  the  perpetuation 
of  wild  life ;  its  educational  activities  through  the  exten- 
sion of  its  influence  to  the  pupils  of  the  public  schools; 
and  its  watch  and  ward  over  all  the  varied  interests  of 
its  cause,  will  keep  the  name  of  Audubon  greener  to  all 
future  time  than  the  most  cherished  of  his  works. 

Of  Audubon's  works  the  public  now  sees  but  little 
and  knows  even  less,  all  without  exception  having  been 
long  out  of  print.  His  admirable  plates  of  birds  and 
mammals  have  been  widely  copied  and  still  serve  for  the 
illustration  of  popular  books,  but  most  of  his  publica- 
tions were  projected  on  too  large  and  expensive  a  scale 
for  general  circulation,  having  been  first  sold  to  sub- 
scribers only  and  often  at  great  cost.  No  complete 
reprint,  revision  or  abridgment  of  his  principal  volumes 
has  been  made  for  half  a  century  (see  Bibliography, 
Appendix  V).  No  complete  bibliography  of  Audu- 
bon has  ever  been  prepared,  and  none  will  remain  com- 
pleted long,  for  it  is  hard  to  imagine  a  time  when  com- 
ment on  his  life,  his  drawings,  and  his  adventures  will 
altogether  cease. 


16         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  May,  1834,  William  MacGillivray,  who  was  as- 
sisting him  in  the  technical  parts  of  the  Ornithological 
Biography,  suggested  that  Audubon  write  a  biography 
of  himself,  and  predicted  a  wide  popularity  for  such  a 
work.  Audubon  entertained  the  idea  but  was  then  too 
deeply  immersed  in  The  Birds  of  America  to  give  it 
much  attention;  yet  in  1835  he  wrote  out  a  short  sketch, 
entitled  Myself,  addressing  it  in  the  fashion  of  that  day 
to  his  two  sons,  and  then  laid  it  aside.  Mrs.  Audubon 
evidently  had  access  to  this  manuscript  when  the  life  of 
her  husband,  to  be  referred  to  later,  was  in  course  of 
preparation,  and  thus  it  has  furnished,  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, nearly  all  that  has  been  published  concerning  the 
naturalist's  early  life.  This  fragment,  which  extends 
to  about  thirty  printed  pages,  was  characterized  by 
Audubon  as  a  "very  imperfect  (but  perfectly  correct) 
account  of  my  early  life,"  and  though  written  with  an 
eye  to  its  possible  publication,  which  was  clearly  sanc- 
tioned, it  was  evidently  never  revised.  The  manuscript 
was  long  lost  but  eventually  was  "found  in  an  old  book 
which  had  been  in  a  barn  on  Staten  Island  for  years"; 
it  was  first  published  by  the  naturalist's  granddaughter, 
Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon,  in  1893,  and  again  in  1898. 
As  will  later  appear,  this  account  is  inaccurate  in  many 
important  particulars. 

Audubon  expressed  the  intention  of  extending  his 
personal  history,  which  he  promised  to  delineate  with  a 
faithfulness  equal  to  that  bestowed  on  the  birds,  but 
the  task  was  never  resumed.  Yet  more  than  most 
writers  have  done,  he  wove  the  incidents  of  his  own 
career  into  the  pages  of  his  principal  works,  and  this 
strong  personal  flavor  added  much  to  their  charm.  Un- 
fortunately, in  giving  such  personal  or  historical  details 
he  is  most  vulnerable  to  a  critic,  who  insists  first  upon 


INTRODUCTION  17 

accuracy,  for  errors  of  various  sorts  and  confused  and 
conflicting  statements  are  far  too  common. 

Of  the  more  formal  biographies  of  Audubon,  the 
first  to  appear  was  a  slender  volume  entitled  Audubon: 
the  Naturalist  of  the  New  World,  by  Mrs.  Horace  Steb- 
bing  Roscoe  St.  John,  published  in  England  in  1856.8 
In  the  same  year  this  work  was  expanded  and  reissued 
by  the  publishers  who  at  that  time  had  charge  of  the 
sale  of  Audubon's  works  in  America.9  The  American 
publishers  explained  in  their  edition  that  inasmuch  as 
"the  fair  authoress  in  preparing  her  interesting  sketch 
of  Audubon  .  .  .  appears  not  to  have  been  aware  of 
the  publication  of  his  second  great  work,  the  Quadru- 
peds of  North  America  (which  had  not  been  advertised, 
we  believe,  in  Europe)  they  have  taken  the  liberty  of 
giving  some  account  of  it  and  making  numerous  ex- 
tracts from  its  pages."  10  Perhaps  the  most  interesting 
or  valuable  things  in  this  little  volume  at  the  present 
day  are  the  woodcut  on  the  title  page  showing  Audu- 
bon's house  on  the  Hudson  as  it  then  appeared,  sur- 
rounded by  tall  trees,  and,  inserted  on  a  flyleaf,  a  list 
of  all  of  Audubon's  published  works  and  the  prices  at 
which  they  could  be  procured  in  New  York  just  prior 
to  the  Civil  War  (see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  204) . 

8  In  this  year  Charles  Lanman,  writer,  and  at  a  later  time  librarian  of 
the  Library  of  Congress,  wrote  to  Victor  Audubon  as  follows:  "Are  not 
you  and  your  family  willing  now  to  let  me  write  a  book  about  your 
illustrious  father?  I  feel  confident  that  I  could  get  up  something  very 
interesting  and  which  would  not  only  help  the  big  work,  but  make  money. 
I  could  have  it  brought  out  in  handsome  style,  and  should  like  to  have 
well  engraved  a  portrait  and  some  half  dozen  views  in  Kentucky,  Louisiana, 
and  on  the  Hudson.  Write  me  what  you  think  about  it."  Lanman's  letter 
is  dated  "Georgetown,  D.  C.,  Oct.  8,  1856";  on  November  1  Victor 
Audubon  replied,  declining  the  proposal. 

"Messrs.  C.  S.  Francis  &  Company,  of  554  Broadway,  New  York. 

10  The  publishers  in  this  instance  do  not  appear  to  have  been  better 
informed,  for  the  text  of  the  Quadrupeds,  from  which  they  quote,  was 
written  by  John  Bachman,  and  the  first  volume  of  it  was  issued  in  London 
in  1847;  see  Bibliography,  No.  6. 


18         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  1868  there  appeared  in  England  a  work  of  com- 
bined and  confused  authorship,  commonly  referred  to 
as  "Buchanan's  Life  of  Audubon'3  the  "sub-editor,"  as 
he  called  himself,  having  since  become  better  known  as 
an  original,  skilled  and  prolific  writer  of  verse,  drama, 
fiction  and  literary  criticism.  At  that  time  Robert 
Buchanan  was  twenty-six  years  old,  and  had  published 
five  volumes  of  poems  in  rapid  succession,  some  of  which 
had  been  received  with  favor  by  the  public.  A  second 
and  third  edition  of  this  Life  followed  in  1869.  Finally 
the  work  was  resurrected  and  again  sent  to  press,  unre- 
vised,  in  1912,  when  it  appeared  in  "Everyman's 
Library,"  at  a  shilling  a  copy,  with  an  introduction 
which  had  served  as  a  review  of  the  work  in  1869. 

A  recent  biographer  of  Alexander  Wilson  speaks  of 
Buchanan  as  "commissioned  by  Mrs.  Audubon  to  write 
her  husband's  life,"  but  the  lady  herself,  as  well  as 
Buchanan,  has  told  a  different  story.  It  seems  that  in 
about  the  year  1866,  Mrs.  Audubon  prepared,  "with  the 
aid  of  a  friend,"  an  extended  memoir  of  her  husband, 
which  was  offered  to  an  American  publisher  but  with- 
out success.  The  "friend,"  at  whose  home  Mrs.  Audu- 
bon was  then  living,  was  the  Rev.  Charles  Coffin 
Adams,11  rector  of  St.  Mary's  Church,  Manhattanville, 
now  135th,  Street,  New  York.  The  Adams  manuscripts 
which  consisted  chiefly  of  a  transcript  from  the  natural- 
ist's journals,  then  in  possession  of  his  wife,  was  com- 
pleted presumably  in  1867.  In  the  summer  of  that  year 
it  was  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  London  publishers, 

"Rev.  Dr.  Adams  was  rector  of  this  parish  for  twenty-five  years,  from 
1863  to  his  death  in  February,  1888;  he  was  the  author  of  three  volumes  on 
religious  subjects  and  various  smaller  tracts;  from  1855  to  1863  he  had 
charge  of  a  church  in  Baltimore,  Maryland,  and  while  there  published 
an  anonymous  pamphlet  entitled  "Slavery  by  a  Marylander;  Its  Institu- 
tion and  Origin;  Its  Status  Under  the  Law  and  Under  the  Gospel" 
(8  pp.  8vo.  Baltimore,  1860). 


INTRODUCTION  19 

Messrs.  Sampson  Low,  Son,  &  Marston,  who  without 
any  authority  turned  it  over  to  one  of  their  hard-pressed, 
pot-boiling  retainers,  Robert  Buchanan,  poet  and  young 
man  of  genius.  Buchanan  boiled  down  the  original 
manuscript,  as  he  said,  to  one-fifth  of  its  original  com- 
pass, cutting  out  what  he  regarded  as  prolix  or  unnec- 
essary and  connecting  "the  whole  with  some  sort  of  a 
running  narrative."  12  Mrs.  Audubon  was  unable  to 
recover  her  property  from  either  publishers  or  editor 
or  to  obtain  any  satisfaction  for  its  unwarranted  use. 
Whatever  defects  the  Adams  memoir  may  have  pos- 
sessed, this  is  much  to  be  regretted,  since,  as  her  grand- 
daughter has  said,  Mrs.  Audubon  had  at  her  command 
many  valuable  documents,  the  originals  of  which  have 
since  been  destroyed. 

Buchanan,  like  Audubon,  had  been  reared  in  com- 
parative luxury,  "the  spoiled  darling  of  a  loving 
mother."  After  the  failure  of  his  father  in  various  news- 
paper enterprises  about  four  years  before  this  time,  he 
had  gone  up  to  London  with  but  few  shillings  in  his 
pocket  and  had  begun  life  there  literally  in  a  garret. 
The  reflection  that  Audubon  had  fought  a  similar  but 
much  harder  battle  in  that  same  London  thirty  years 
before,  and  won,  should  possibly  have  awakened  in  him 
a  somewhat  friendlier  spirit  than  was  then  displayed. 
It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  Buchanan  produced 
a  very  readable  story,  although  there  was  not  a  word 
in  his  whole  book  which  showed  any  real  sympathy  with 

13  Buchanan  said  that  the  manuscript  submitted  to  him  was  inordinately 
long  and  needed  careful  revision;  he  added  that  "while  he  could  not  fail 
to  express  his  admiration  for  the  affectionate  spirit  and  intelligent  sym- 
pathy with  which  the  friendly  editor  discharged  his  task,  he  was  bound 
to  say  that  his  literary  experience  was  limited."  After  copying  a  passage 
from  one  of  Audubon's  journals,  this  editor  had  the  unfortunate  habit 
of  drawing  his  pen  through  the  original;  in  this  way  hundreds  of  pages  of 
Audubon's  admirable  "copper-plate"  were  irretrievably  defaced. 


20         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Audubon's  lifelong  pursuits,  any  knowledge  of  orni- 
thology, or  any  interest  in  natural  science.  Though  ex- 
pressing unbounded  admiration  for  the  naturalist,  his 
foibles  and  faults  seem  to  have  hidden  from  this  biog- 
rapher the  true  value  of  his  distinguished  services.  In 
respect  to  a  knowledge  of  natural  history  it  should  be 
added  that  Buchanan  laid  no  claims,  and  of  Audubon's 
accomplishments  in  this  field  comparatively  little  was 
said,  the  book,  like  the  Adams'  manuscript  from  which 
it  was  drawn,  being  mainly  composed  of  extracts  from 
the  naturalist's  private  journals  and  "Episodes,"  as  he 
called  his  descriptive  papers.  It  was  here  that  Audubon 
made  the  strongest  appeal  to  this  literary  editor,  who 
concluded  his  preface  with  the  following  words  of  praise : 
"Some  of  his  reminiscences  of  adventure  .  .  .  seem  to 
me  to  be  quite  as  good,  in  vividness  of  presentment  and 
careful  colouring,  as  anything  I  have  ever  read." 

Buchanan  dilated  on  Audubon's  pride,  vanity  and 
self-conceit,  faults  which  may  have  belonged  to  his  youth 
but  which  were  never  mentioned  by  his  intimate  friends 
and  contemporaries  except  under  conditions  which  re- 
flected rather  unfavorably  upon  themselves.  Com- 
plaints on  this  score  were  spread  broadcast  by  review- 
ers of  this  work,  seventeen  years  after  the  naturalist's 
death  and  with  the  suddenness  of  a  new  discovery.  They 
were  undoubtedly  based  on  the  unconscious  and  allow- 
able egotisms  of  such  personal  records  as  Audubon 
habitually  made  for  the  members  of  his  family  when 
time  and  distance  kept  them  asunder.  Vanity  and  self- 
ishness could  have  formed  no  essential  parts  of  a  char- 
acter that  merited  the  eulogy  which  follows : 

Audubon  was  a  man  of  genius,  with  the  courage  of  a  lion 
and  the  simplicity  of  a  child.  One  scarcely  knows  which  to 


INTRODUCTION  21 

admire  most — the  mighty  determination  which  enabled  him  to 
carry  out  his  great  work  in  the  face  of  difficulties  so  huge,  or 
the  gentle  and  guileless  sweetness  with  which  he  throughout 
shared  his  thoughts  and  aspirations  with  his  wife  and  children. 
He  was  more  like  a  child  at  the  mother's  knee,  than  a  husband 
at  the  hearth — so  free  was  the  prattle,  so  thorough  the  confi- 
dence. Mrs.  Audubon  appears  to  have  been  a  wife  in  every 
respect  worthy  of  such  a  man ;  willing  to  sacrifice  her  personal 
comfort  at  any  moment  for  the  furtherance  of  his  great 
schemes;  ever  ready  to  kiss  and  counsel  when  such  were  most 
needed ;  never  failing  for  a  moment  in  her  faith  that  Audubon 
was  destined  to  be  one  of  the  great  workers  of  the  earth.13 

No  one  will  deny,  however,  that  Buchanan  was  right 
in  saying  that  in  order  to  get  a  man  like  Audubon  under- 
stood, all  domestic  partiality,  the  bane  of  much  biogra- 
phy, must  be  put  aside;  but  it  is  equally  important  to 
make  such  allowances  as  the  manifold  circumstances  of 
time  and  place  demand,  and  to  be  a  reasoner  rather  than 
a  fancier.  This  work  abounds  in  errors,  but  it  is  not 
clear  to  what  extent  they  were  due  to  carelessness  on 
Buchanan's  part. 

It  was  certainly  a  mistake  to  attribute  Buchanan's 
attitude  to  partiality  for  Alexander  Wilson,  who,  like 
himself,  was  a  Scotchman.  It  was  a  case  of  tempera- 
ment only,  for  gloom  and  poverty  had  embittered  his 
life.  As  his  sister-in-law  and  biographer  14  said  of  him, 
"he  was  doomed  to  much  ignoble  pot-boiling.  .  .  .  He 
had  few  friends  and  many  enemies,"  and  "had  received 
from  the  world  many  cruel  blows,"  while  "no  man 
needed  kindness  so  much  and  received  so  little."  Per- 

"  Robert  Buchanan,  The  Life  of  Audubon  (Bibl.  No.  72),  p.  vi. 

"See  Harriet  Jay,  Robert  Buchanan:  Some  Account  of  His  Life, 
His  Life's  Work,  and  His  Literary  Friendships  (London,  1903).  Robert 
Williams  Buchanan  was  born  at  Caverswell,  Lancashire,  August  18,  1841, 
and  died  in  London,  June  10,  1901. 


22         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

haps  the  best  key  to  the  sad  history  of  this  able  writer 
was  given  by  himself  when  he  said:  "It  is  my  vice  that 
I  must  love  a  thing  wholly,  or  dislike  it  wholly."  His 
wife,  we  are  told,  was  much  like  himself,  and  "like  a 
couple  of  babies  they  muddled  through  life,  tasting  of 
some  of  its  joys,  but  oftener  of  its  sorrows."  Undoubt- 
edly Robert  Buchanan  was  a  genuine  lover  of  truth  and 
beauty;  he  has  written  numerous  sketches  of  birds  and 
outdoor  scenes,  but  with  no  suggestion  of  nature  as 
serving  any  other  purpose  than  that  of  supplying  a  poet 
with  bright  and  pleasing  images. 

It  was  with  the  purpose  of  correcting  the  false  im- 
pressions created  by  animadversions  in  Buchanan's  Life 
that  Mrs.  Audubon,  with  the  aid  of  her  friend,  James 
Grant  Wilson,  revised  this  work  and  published  it  in 
America  under  her  name  as  editor,  in  1869.  The 
changes  then  made  in  Buchanan's  text,  however,  were 
of  a  minor  character  and  most  of  its  errors  remained 
uncorrected.  The  naturalist's  granddaughter,  Miss 
Maria  R.  Audubon,  was  inspired  in  part  by  similar  feel- 
ings in  preparing,  with  the  aid  of  Dr.  Elliott  Coues,  her 
larger  and  excellent  work  in  two  volumes,  entitled 
Audubon,  and  His  Journals,  which  appeared  in  1898. 
To  her  all  admirers  of  Audubon  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude 
for  giving  to  the  world  for  the  first  time  a  large  part 
of  his  extant  journals,  as  well  as  many  new  facts  bear- 
ing upon  his  life  and  character.  Other  briefer  biogra- 
phies of  Audubon  which  have  appeared  have  been  taken 
so  completely  from  the  preceding  works,  and  have  re- 
peated and  extended  their  errors  to  such  an  extent,  as  to 
call  for  little  or  no  comment  either  here  or  in  the  pages 
which  follow. 

Through  the  discovery  in  France  of  new  document- 
ary evidence  in  surprising  abundance  we  are  obliged  to 


INTRODUCTION  23 

draw  conclusions  contrary  to  those  which  have  hitherto 
been  accepted,  and  the  new  light  thus  obtained  enables 
us  to  form  a  more  accurate  and  just  judgment  of  Audu- 
bon  the  man,  and  of  his  work. 


CHAPTER   II 

JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY 

Extraordinary  career  of  the  naturalist's  father — Wounded  at  fourteen  and 
prisoner  of  war  for  five  years  in  England — Service  in  the  French  mer- 
chant marine  and  navy — Voyages  to  Newfoundland  and  Santo 
Domingo — His  marriage  in  France — His  sea  fights,  capture  and  im- 
prisonment in  New  York — His  command  at  the  Battle  of  Yorktown — 
Service  in  America  and  encounters  with  British  privateers. 

Few  names  of  purely  Gallic  origin  are  today  better 
known  in  America,  or  touch  a  more  sympathetic  chord 
of  human  interest,  than  that  of  Audubon,  and  few,  we 
might  also  add,  are  so  rare.  John  James  Audubon  first 
made  his  family  name  known  to  all  the  world,  and 
though  he  left  numerous  descendants,  it  has  become  well 
nigh  extinct  in  America,  and  is  far  from  common  in 
France.  The  great  Paris  directory  frequently  contains 
no  entry  under  this  head;  Nantes  knows  his  name  no 
longer,  and  it  is  rare  in  the  marshes  of  La  Vendee, 
where  at  some  remote  period  it  may  have  originated. 

The  lists  of  the  army  of  five  thousand  which  Rocham- 
beau's  fleet  brought  to  our  aid  in  the  American  War  of 
Independence  show  but  a  single  variant  of  this  euphoni- 
ous patronym,  in  Pierre  Audibon,1  a  soldier  in  the  regi- 
ment of  Touraine,  who  was  born  at  Montigny  in  1756; 
but  in  the  fleet  of  the  Count  de  Grasse  which  cooperated 
with  our  land-forces  at  the  Battle  of  Yorktown,  on 
October  19,  1781,  a  ship  was  commanded  by  an  officer 
with  whom  we  are  more  intimately  concerned.  This 

1  For  similar  spelling  of  the  name  by  John  James  Audubon,  see 
Appendix  I,  Document  No.  12. 

24 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY    25 

was  Captain  Jean  Audubon,  who  was  later  to  become 
the  father  of  America's  pioneer  woodsman,  ornitholo- 
gist and  animal  painter. 

By  birth  a  Vendean,  at  the  age  of  thirty-seven  Jean 
Audubon  had  plowed  the  seas  of  half  the  world,  and 
in  the  course  of  his  checkered  career,  as  sailor,  soldier, 
West  Indian  planter  and  merchant,  had  met  enough 
adventure  to  furnish  the  materials  for  a  whole  series  of 
dime  novels.  Short  of  stature,  with  auburn  hair  and  a 
fiery  temper,  he  was  then  as  stubborn  and  fearless  an 
opponent  as  one  could  meet  on  the  high  seas,  and  one 
of  the  gamest  fighting  cocks  of  the  French  merchant 
marine.  How  much  Jean  Audubon's  son  owed  to  his 
French  Creole  mother  will  never  be  known,  but  to  this 
self-taught,  thoroughly  capable,  and  enterprising  sailor 
we  can  surely  trace  his  restless  activity,  his  versatile 
mind  and  mercurial  temper,  as  well  as  an  inherent  ca- 
pacity for  taking  pains,  which  father  and  son  possessed 
to  a  marked  degree. 

The  true  story  of  Jean  Audubon's  career  has  never 
been  told,  but  even  at  this  late  day  it  will  be  found  an 
interesting  human  document;  and  what  is  more  to  our 
purpose,  it  throws  into  sharp  outline  much  that  has 
hitherto  remained  obscure  in  the  life  of  his  remarkable 
son.  The  first  Audubon  to  leave  any  imprint,  how- 
ever faint,  upon  the  history  of  his  time,  this  honest, 
matter-of-fact  sailor,  would  have  been  the  last  to  wish 
to  appear  in  the  garb  of  fiction,  and  we  shall  base  our 
story  solely  upon  the  unimpeachable  testimony  of  public 
and  private  records,  which  researches  in  France  had 
happily  brought  to  light  before  the  beginning  of  the 
war  in  1914.2 

3  For  notice  of  these  records  of  Jean  Audubon  and  his  family,  see  the 
Preface,  and  for  the  most  important  documents,  Appendix  I. 


26        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Jean  Audubon  came  by  his  sailor's  instincts  and 
fighting  prowess  naturally,  for  his  father,  Pierre  Audu- 
bon of  Les  Sables  d'Olonne,  was  a  seaman  by  trade. 
Like  his  son  he  captained  his  own  vessel,  and  for  years 
made  long  voyages  between  French  ports  in  both  the 
old  and  the  new  worlds.  Pierre  Audubon,  the  paternal 
grandfather  of  John  James  Audubon,  and  the  first  of 
that  name  of  whom  we  have  found  any  record,3  lived 
at  Les  Sables  d'Olonne,  where  with  Marie  Anne  Martin, 
his  wife,  he  reared  a  considerable  family  in  the  first  half 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Les  Sables,  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak,  was  a 
small  fishing  and  trading  port  on  the  Bay  of  Biscay, 
fifty  miles  to  the  southwest  of  Nantes,  but  is  now  be- 
come a  city  of  over  twenty  thousand  people.  Lying  on 
the  westerly  verge  of  the  Marais,  or  salt  marshes  and 
lakes  of  La  Vendee,  the  inhabitants  of  the  district,  and 
more  particularly  of  the  Bocage,,  or  plantations,  to  the 
north  and  rfortheast,  were  noted  from  an  early  day  for 
their  conservatism,  as  shown  in  a  firm  adherence  to 
ancient  law  and  custom,  as  well  as  for  their  unswerving 
loyalty  to  the  old  nobility  and  to  the  clergy.  Like  their 
Breton  neighbors  on  the  other  side  of  the  Loire,  the 
Vendeans  were  honest,  industrious,  and  faithful  to  their 
civic  obligations;  they  were  also  independent,  resource- 
ful, and  knew  no  fear.  When  the  neighboring  city  of 
Nantes  planted  trees  of  liberty  and  displayed  the  Na- 
tional colors  in  1789,  the  Vendeans  were  stirred  to  indig- 
nation and  later  to  arms,  while  the  Chouans  on  the  right 
bank  of  the  river  were  quick  to  follow  their  example ;  in 
short,  the  rebels  of  La  Vendee  raised  such  a  storm  that 

8  Pierre  Audubon's  service  in  the  merchant  marine  of  France  is  un- 
doubtedly recorded  in  the  archives  of  the  Department  of  Marine  in 
Paris,  but  all  researches  in  that  direction  were  suddenly  halted  by  the 
war. 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY    27 

for  months  the  very  existence  of  the  infant  Republic 
was  threatened.  This  spirit  of  revolt  to  the  newer  order, 
the  Chouanerie,  as  it  came  to  be  called,  was  stamped 
out  for  the  time,  but  a  few  smoldering  embers  always 
remained,  ready  to  burst  into  flame  at  the  slightest 
provocation;  recrudescent  symptoms  of  this  tendency 
had  to  be  suppressed  even  as  late  as  1830,  when  Charles 
X,  the  last  Bourbon  king,  lost  his  crown.  Pierre  Audu- 
bon's  family,  no  doubt,  shared  many  characteristics  of 
their  Vendean  and  Breton  neighbors,  but  as  the  sequel 
will  show,  one  at  least  did  not  approve  of  their  political 
course,  for  he  took  up  arms  against  them,  and  presum- 
ably against  many  of  his  own  kith  and  kin. 

Jean  Audubon  was  born  at  Les  Sables  on  October 
11,  1744,  and  was  christened  on  the  same  day,  his  god- 
father being  Claude  Jean  Audubon,  in  all  probability 
an  uncle  after  whom  he  was  named,  and  his  godmother, 
Catharine  Martin,  presumably  an  aunt.  Twenty-one 
children,  according  to  the  naturalist,  blessed  the  union 
of  Pierre  Audubon  and  his  wife,  and  were  reared  to  ma- 
turity. Whether  this  statement  is  strictly  accurate,  or 
what  became  of  so  large  a  family  cannot  now  be  ascer- 
tained.4 

*Jean  Audubon  had  a  brother  Claude,  and  on  February  27,  1791,  he 
wrote  to  him,  asking  for  4,000  francs,  which  he  needed  for  the  purchase 
of  a  boat.  It  was  probably  this  brother  who  lived  at  Bayonne,  and  left 
three  daughters,  Anne,  Dominica,  and  Catherine  Francoise,  who  married 
Jean  Louis  Lissabe",  a  pilot  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  263).  If  this  inference  be  correct, 
and  the  sum  referred  to  was  demanded  in  payment  of  a  debt,  it  may 
explain  a  statement  of  the  naturalist  that  his  father  and  his  uncle  were 
not  on  speaking  terms. 

Another  brother  is  said  to  have  been  an  active  politician  at  Nantes, 
La  Rochelle  and  Paris  from  1771  to  1796,  when  he  dropped  out  of  sight 
for  a  number  of  years.  When  heard  of  again  he  was  living  at  La 
Rochelle  in  affluence  and  piety.  This  was  apparently  the  Audubon  to 
whom  the  naturalist  referred  in  certain  of  his  journals  and  private  letters 
as  one  who,  possessing  the  secret  of  his  birth  and  early  life,  had  done 
both  him  and  his  father  an  irreparable  injury  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  270). 

A  sister,  Marie  Rosa  Audubon,  was  married  in   1794  to  Pierre  de 


28         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Pierre  Audubon  was  engaged  by  the  French  Gov- 
ernment to  transport  the  necessities  of  war  to  Cape 
Breton  Island  in  1757,  when  the  world- wide  struggle 
between  France  and  Great  Britain  for  supremacy  in  the 
New  World  was  at  hand.  The  French  were  deter- 
mined at  all  hazards  to  hold  their  great  fortress  of 
Louisburg,  which  had  been  taken  by  the  English  but 
again  restored  to  the  French  not  many  years  before. 
This  was  the  strongest  and  most  costly  fortress  on  the 
American  continent,  as  well  as  a  great  center  for  the 
valuable  trade  in  salted  fish.  By  a  coincidence,  or  pos- 
sibly out  of  compliment  to  his  wife,  Pierre's  ship  bore 
the  name  of  La  Marianne,  and  when  he  sailed  from  his 
home  port  of  Les  Sables  d'Olonne  on  April  15,  1757, 
he  took  with  him  his  own  son,  Jean,  as  cabin-boy,  when 
the  lad  was  but  thirteen  years  old.  In  the  following 
May  Great  Britain  threw  down  the  gauntlet  to  France, 
and  the  terrific  seven  years'  struggle  began.  The  great 
fortress  of  Louisburg  fell  in  the  following  year  to  the 
English  fleet,  and  was  left  a  heap  of  ruins.  His  father's 
ship,  the  Mary  Ann,  was  involved,  and  young  Jean 
Audubon,  who  thus  began  his  fighting  career  at  four- 
teen, was  wounded  in  the  left  leg  and  made  a  prisoner. 
With  many  of  his  compatriots  he  was  taken  to  England, 
landing  on  November  14,  1758,  where  he  remained  in 
captivity  for  five  years ;  he  was  released  but  a  short  time 

Vaugeon,  a  lawyer  at  Nantes;  their  only  son,  Louis  Lejeune  de  Vaugeon, 
was  living  at  Nantes  as  late  as  1822,  when  he  deeded  his  former  home  to 
Henri  Boutard.  (The  substance  of  this  and  the  preceding  paragraph 
is  based  partly  upon  data  furnished  by  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon.) 

Jean  Audubon  gave  his  daughter,  Rosa,  the  name  of  her  aunt,  but 
in  later  life  seems  to  have  broken  off  all  relations  with  his  brothers. 
Upon  his  death  his  will  was  immediately  attacked  by  Mme.  Lejeune  de 
Vaugeon,  of  Nantes,  and  by  the  three  nieces  from  Bayonne  (see  Chapter 
XVII).  The  naturalist  does  not  give  the  name  of  the  aunt  who,  as  he 
said,  was  killed  during  the  Revolution  at  Nantes,  but  I  have  found  no 
reference  to  any  other. 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY    20 

before  the  treaty  of  peace  was  signed  at  Paris,  February 
10,  1763.  Apart  from  her  interests  in  the  West  Indies, 
France  was  stripped  at  this  time  of  all  her  vast  pos- 
sessions in  America,  save  only  the  two  little  islands  of 
Saint  Pierre  and  Miquelon. 

Whether  Pierre  Audubon  shared  the  fate  of  his  son 
we  are  unable  to  say,  for  at  this  point  he  drops  out 
of  our  records  and  we  do  not  hear  of  him  again.  It 
is  certain  that  he  never  made  another  voyage  with 
Jean,  who  returned  to  his  native  town  with  his  passion 
for  the  sea  unabated,  and  at  nineteen  reentered  the  mer- 
chant marine  as  a  novice.  His  next  voyage,  on  the  ship 
La  Caille,  Captain  Pigeon,  was  to  execute  a  govern- 
mental commission  at  the  Island  of  Miquelon.  Five 
golden  years  of  his  youth  had  been  spent  in  captivity; 
if  productive  of  nothing  else  they  had  given  him  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  English  tongue,  but  they  had  also  engen- 
dered bitter  hatred  of  the  English  race,  a  feeling  which 
his  son  confessed  to  have  shared  in  his  youthful  days.5 

The  period  from  1766  to  1768  was  occupied  in  four 
voyages  to  Newfoundland,  probably  in  the  interest  of 
the  codfish  trade,  first  as  sailor  before  the  mast  in  Le 
Printemps,  and  then  as  lieutenant  in  a  ship  called  also 
La  Marianne,  with  alternate  sailings  from,  and  to,  La 
Rochelle  and  Les  Sables  d'Olonne.  On  his  third  voyage 
to  Newfoundland,  which  was  made  in  1767,  when  he 
was  twenty-three  years  old,  Jean  Audubon  ranked  as 

"This  was  recalled  by  the  naturalist  on  March  5,  1827,  when  he 
wrote:  "As  a  lad  I  had  a  great  aversion  to  anything  English  or  Scotch, 
and  I  remember  when  travelling  with  my  father  to  Rochefort  in  January, 
1800,  I  mentioned  this  to  him.  .  .  .  How  well  I  remember  his  reply.  .  .  . 
'Thy  blood  will  cool  in  time,  and  thou  wilt  be  surprised  to  see  how  gradually 
prejudices  are  obliterated,  and  friendships  acquired,  towards  those  that 
we  at  one  time  held  in  contempt.  Thou  hast  not  been  in  England;  I  have, 
and  it  is  a  fine  country.'"  (See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  His 
Journals  (3ibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i,  p.  216). 


30        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

lieutenant  of  his  vessel,  but  in  the  summer  of  1768  he 
shipped  again  from  Les  Sables  as  sailor  before  the  mast 
for  a  short  trading  cruise  on  the  coast  of  France;  in 
this  instance  the  vessel,  called  Le  Propre,  was  captained 
by  Pierre  Martin,  who  was  possibly  an  uncle.  At  this 
juncture  Jean  Audubon  enlisted  in  the  French  navy 
(service  for  the  State)  as  a  common  sailor,  and  made 
two  voyages  on  governmental  business  from  the  port  of 
Rochefort,  serving  altogether  nearly  nine  months 
(1768-9).  After  the  termination  of  this  last  engage- 
ment nothing  is  heard  of  Jean  for  over  a  year,  when 
in  1770  he  makes  his  first  appearance  at  Nantes,  the 
city  that  was  to  know  him  in  many  capacities  for  nearly 
half  a  century.  There  he  reentered  the  merchant  ma- 
rine, and  on  November  1,  1770,  began  a  series  of  eight 
voyages,  lasting  as  many  years,  to  the  island  of  Santo 
Domingo,  the  western  section  of  which  was  then  in  pos- 
session of  France. 

Since  much  of  the  mystery  which  hitherto  has 
shrouded  the  early  life  of  John  James  Audubon  is  in- 
volved in  the  West  Indian  period  of  his  father's  career, 
we  shall  now  trace  this  history  in  considerable  detail. 

The  great  export  trade  of  French  Santo  Domingo 
in  those  days  was  in  brown  and  white  sugar,  then  known 
as  the  "Muscovado"  and  "clayed"  sorts,  which  for  the 
year  1789  amounted  to  over  141,000,000  pounds,  valued 
at  more  than  122,000,000  francs;  and  in  coffee,  which 
in  the  same  year  totaled  nearly  77,000,000  pounds,  esti- 
mated to  be  worth  nearly  52,000,000  francs.6  While  all 

6  In  1789  over  7,000,000  pounds  of  cotton  and  758,628  pounds  of 
indigo  were  exported  from  the  French  side  of  the  island,  while  further 
products  of  that  year,  including  smaller  amounts  of  cocoa,  molasses,  rum, 
hides,  dye-woods,  and  tortoise  shell,  swelled  the  grand  total  of  exports  to 
205,000,000  livres  or  francs.  Bryan  Edwards,  however,  whose  deductions 
were  based  on  official  returns,  placed  the  average  value  of  all  exports 
from  French  Santo  Domingo  for  the  years  1787,  1788,  and  1789,  at 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY    31 

such  estimates  were  no  doubt  very  crude,  they  serve  to 
illustrate  the  richness  of  the  prize  that  attracted  French- 
men by  hundreds  to  the  colony,  an  island  that  to  many 
seemed  a  paradise  in  prospect,  but  which  proved  to  be  a 
purgatory  in  disguise. 

Jean  Audubon's  voyages  were  all  made  in  the  in- 
terest of  this  valuable  trade.  Since  they  commonly 
lasted  from  six  months  to  nearly  a  year,  they  became 
doubly  hazardous  to  a  French  sailor  after  the  outbreak 
of  the  American  Revolution,  for  if  he  escaped  his 
Scylla,  the  inveterate  pirate,  he  might  expect  to  en- 
counter an  equally  formidable  Charybdis  in  an  Eng- 
lish privateer.  Though  the  northwestern  corner  of 
Santo  Domingo  was  the  center  of  their  forays,  Jean 
never  lost  a  ship  to  the  buccaneers,  and  though  some- 
times caught  by  the  English,  he  never  surrendered.  He 
made  three  successive  voyages  from  1770  to  1772  in 
La  Dauphine,  commanded  by  Jean  Pallueau,  first  as 
lieutenant  and  later  as  captain  of  the  second  grade,  but 
on  his  last  five  voyages  to  the  West  Indies  he  captained 
his  own  ships,  known  as  Le  Marquis  de  Levy  (1774), 

171,544,000  livres  in  Hispaniola  currency,  or  £4,765,129  sterling;  this  would 
be  equivalent  to  about  $23,158,426,  and  imply  a  purchase  value  of  the  French 
livre  or  franc  of  about  13y2  cents  in  American  money. 

The  number  of  plantations  of  every  kind  in  the  French  colony  was 
estimated  by  Edwards  in  1790,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  at 
8,536;  there  were  over  800  sugar  plantations,  over  3,000  coffee  estates,  to 
mention  two  such  resources.  If  to  these  items  we  add  nearly  half  a 
million  slaves,  the  total  valuation  of  the  movable  and  fixed  property  of 
the  French  planters  and  merchants  of  this  period  would  reach  1,557,870,000 
francs.  In  1788,  98  slave  ships  entered  the  six  principal  ports  on  the 
French  side,  and  landed  29,506  negroes;  Les  Cayes  received  19  of  these 
ships,  which  delivered  at  that  port  4,590  blacks.  These  slaves  were  sold 
for  61,936,190  livres,  or  at  the  rate  of  2,008.37  livres  each;  according  to 
Edwards  this  was  equivalent  to  £60  sterling,  or  to  about  $291.60  in 
American  money,  at  the  rate  of  14%  cents  to  the  livre  or  franc.  See 
particularly  Francis  Alexander  Stanilaus,  Baron  de  Wimpffcn,  A  Voyage 
to  Santo  Domingo  in  the  Years  1788,  1789,  and  1790,  translated  by  J. 
Wright  (London,  1817) ;  and  also  Bryan  Edwards,  An  Historical  Survey  of 
the  French  Colony  in  the  Island  of  San  Domingo  (London,  1797). 


32         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Les  Eons  Amis  (1775-6),  and  Le  Comte  d'Artois 
(1777-8). 

Captain  Audubon  was  married  on  August  24,  1772, 
at  Paimboeuf,  to  Anne  Moynet,7  a  widow  of  some  prop- 
erty, who  had  been  born  at  Nantes  in  1735  and  was  thus 
nine  years  his  senior.  Her  married  name  was  Ricordel. 
She  possessed  several  houses  at  Paimboeuf,  and  acquired 
one  in  1777,  which  was  rented  to  the  Administration  at 
the  time  of  the  Revolution  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  80),  as  well  as 
a  dwelling  at  Nantes,  where  she  lived  while  her  roving 
sailor  of  a  husband  was  in  Santo  Domingo  or  the  United 
States.  Madame  Audubon  was  a  woman  of  simple 
tastes,  devoted  to  culture,  and,  as  we  shall  see,  possessed 
of  a  kind  heart. 

When  Captain  Audubon  left  Les  Cayes,  Santo 
Domingo,  on  his  last  trading  voyage,  in  the  spring  of 
1779,  bound  for  Nantes  with  a  valuable  cargo,  his  ship, 
Le  Comte  d'Artois,  was  attacked  by  four  British  cor- 
sairs and  two  galleys.  With  the  odds  overwhelmingly 
against  him,  he  fought  until  his  crew  were  nearly  all 
killed  or  disabled,  and  after  an  abortive  attempt  to 
blow  up  his  vessel,  tried  to  escape  in  his  shallop.  For 
the  second  time  he  was  made  a  prisoner  by  the  English, 
who  in  this  instance  took  him  to  New  York,  then  in  the 
possession  of  British  troops.  He  was  landed  in  that 
city  on  May  12,  1779,  and  was  held  there  as  a  prisoner 
of  war  for  thirteen  months.  If  our  inference  be  correct, 
he  finally  owed  his  release  to  the  efforts  of  the  French 
Ambassador,  Monsieur  de  la  Luzerne,  the  same,  we 
believe,  who  had  been  a  Governor  of  Santo  Domingo, 
and  who  in  1790  became  its  Minister  of  Marine.  As 

7  As  signed  by  herself,  but  variously  spelled  "Moinet,"  or  "Moynette" 
in  family  documents  of  the  period.  On  August  28,  four  days  after  their 
marriage,  they  drew  up  and  signed  a  mutual  contract  regarding  the 
disposition  of  their  property  in  case  children  should  be  born  to  them. 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY    33 

will  be  seen  presently,  this  diplomat  again  exerted  him- 
self in  Captain  Audubon's  behalf. 

It  is  interesting  to  find  that  on  this  occasion  Jean 
Audubon  was  fighting  not  only  for  his  life,  but  for  his 
property.  His  vessel,  Le  Comte  d'Artois,  was  very 
heavily  armed.  Though  of  only  250  tons,  she  carried 
no  less  than  ten  cannon,  four  of  which  were  mounted 
on  gun  carriages,  and  ten  bronze  pivot  guns,  which 
might  imply  that  she  was  originally  designed  as  a  priva- 
teer. The  ship  was  not  destroyed  when  her  captain  was 
made  prisoner,  but  was  taken  by  the  English  to  Ports- 
mouth, New  Hampshire  (?),  and  burned  there  before 
December  15  of  the  following  year.8  Before  starting  on 
this  disastrous  voyage  Captain  Audubon  had  sold  the 
vessel  and  his  interest  in  her  cargo  to  the  Messrs.  La- 
croix,  Formon  de  Boisclair  and  Jacques,  with  whom 
later  he  had  extensive  dealings  in  slaves ;  but  he  was  not 
paid,  and  though  an  indemnity  seems  to  have  come  from 
the  British  Government,  he  was  never  able  to  obtain  a 
satisfactory  settlement  of  the  Formon  claim.9 

8 The  destruction  of  Le  Comte  d'Artois  is  noticed  in  a  document 
bearing  date  of  January  19,  1782;  the  name  of  the  town  only  is  given, 
but  it  is  probable  that  it  refers  to  the  United  States. 

9  For  repeated  reference  to  this  unsettled  claim,  see  his  letter  of 
1805  to  Francis  Dacosta  (Chapter  VIII),  where  the  name  is  written 
"Formont." 

The  bill  of  sale  of  Le  Comte  d'Artois  was  drawn  on  February  21, 
1779,  when  Jean  Audubon  appeared  "before  the  notaries  of  the  king  in 
the  seneschal's  court  of  Saint  Louis,"  and  was  described  as  "resident  at 
Les  Cayes,  opposite  the  Isle  a  Vaches."  The  document,  which  in  my 
copy  is  incomplete,  reads  in  part  as  follows: 

"The  present  M.  Jean  Audubon,  captain-commander  of  the  ship  Le 
Comte  d'Artois,  of  Nantes,  armed  for  war  and  now  laden  with  mer- 
chandise, anchored  in  this  roadstead  of  Les  Cayes,  dispatched,  and  at 
the  point  of  departure  for  France;  armed  by  the  Messrs.  Coirond  Brothers, 
merchants  at  the  said  city  of  Nantes,  acting  in  his  own  name  as  one 
interested  in  the  armament  and  cargo  of  the  vessel,  as  well  as  in  his 
capacity  as  captain;  [he]  acting  as  much  also  for  the  said  furnishers  of 
arms  as  for  the  others  interested  in  the  said  armaments,  and  the  mer- 
chandise, which  will  be  hereafter  mentioned,  in  consideration  of  the  rights 
of  each,  promises  to  have  these  presents  accepted  and  approved  in  due 


34        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Jean  Audubon's  release  from  captivity  in  New 
York,  in  June,  1780,  probably  marks  the  period  of  his 
first  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  United  States. 
We  know  only  that  he  did  not  return  immediately  to 
either  Santo  Domingo  or  France,  but  became  an  en- 
thusiast for  the  American  cause,  and  sought  the  ear- 
liest opportunity  to  avenge  his  wrongs  at  the  hands  of 
the  British.  He  did  not  have  long  to  wait,  for  through 
the  exertions  of  the  Ambassador  de  la  Luzerne,  he  was 
placed  in  command  of  the  corvette  Queen  Charlotte. 
With  her,  in  October,  1781,  he  joined  the  fleet  of  the 
Count  de  Grasse  before  Yorktown,10  where  he  soon 
witnessed  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  and  the  humilia- 
tion of  his  enemies.  After  this  turning  point  of  the 
war  Captain  Audubon  remained  in  the  United  States, 
and  in  April,  1782,  commanded  a  merchantman  called 
L'Annette,11  in  which  he  was  also  personally  interested, 
and  delivered  a  cargo  of  Virginia  tobacco  at  the  port 
of  Nantes.  Shortly  after  his  return  to  America  in  the 

time;  which  said  person,  appearing  in  said  names,  in  the  quality  afore- 
said, by  these  presents  has  sold,  ceded,  given  up,  transferred,  and  re- 
linquished all  his  legal  rights  in  the  aforesaid  ship,  to  the  business-asso- 
ciates Lacroix,  Formon  de  Boisclair  &  Jacques,  three  merchants  in  partner- 
ship, living  in  this  town,  purchasers  conjointly  and  severally,  for  them- 
selves and  the  assigns  of  each,  to  the  extent  of  one  third;  To  wit:  the 
said  ship  Le  Oomte  d'Artois,  of  the  said  port  of  Nantes,  of  about  two 
hundred  and  fifty  tons,  at  present  anchored  in  this  roadstead  of  Les 
Cayes,  dispatched,  and  at  the  point  of  departure  for  France,  with  all  its 
rigging,  outfit,  and  dependences,  which  consist  among  other  things  of  two 
sets  of  sail,  complete,  and  newly  fitted  out,  all  the  tools,  and  the  reserve 
sets  of  these,  with  the  munitions  of  war,  consisting  of  ten  cannon,  four 
of  them  mounted  on  gun  carriages,  and  all  that  goes  with  them.  .  .  ." 
(Translated  from  the  French  original  in  possession  of  Monsieur  Lavigne.) 

"The  fact  that  Captain  Audubon  did  not  accompany  Rochambeau's 
fleet  which  assembled  at  Brest  in  April,  1780,  and  reached  Newport  in  mid- 
July,  may  account  for  the  omission  of  his  name  from  the  lists  that  have 
been  recently  published.  See  Les  Combattants  Frangois  de  la  Ouerre 
Americaine,  1778-1783  (Paris,  1903). 

"Others  interested  in  this  vessel  were  Messrs.  David  Ross  &  Com- 
pany, with  whom  Captain  Audubon  later  had  financial  difficulties  (see 
Chapter  VIII). 


JEAN  AUDUBON  AND  HIS  FAMILY     35 

same  year  he  was  placed  in  command  of  an  American 
armed  vessel  The  Queen  and  sent  on  another  mission 
to  France.  Near  the  Chaussee  des  Saints  he  was  at- 
tacked by  a  British  privateer,  but  after  a  stubborn  fight 
at  close  quarters  he  sank  his  enemy  and  entered  the 
port  of  Brest.  Nothing  is  said  of  the  taking  of  pris- 
oners on  such  occasions,  and  there  were  doubtless  few 
survivors  among  the  defeated  crew.  This  command 
Jean  Audubon  held  until  peace  was  concluded  between 
Great  Britain  and  her  former  colonies  in  America,  prob- 
ably until  the  close  of  1783.  The  hostile  army  was  dis- 
banded in  the  spring  of  that  year,  the  treaty  of  peace 
was  made  definitive  in  September,  and  on  November 
25,  1783,  the  last  British  troopers  left  the  city  of  New 
York. 


CHAPTER  III 

JEAN  AUDUBON  AS  SANTO  DOMINGO  PLANTER  AND 

MERCHANT 

Captain  Audubon  at  Les  Cayes — As  planter,  sugar  refiner,  general  mer- 
chant and  slave  dealer,  amasses  a  fortune — His  return  to  France 
with  his  children — History  of  the  Santo  Domingo  revolt — Baron  de 
Wimp ff en's  experience — Revolution  of  the  whites — Opposition  of  the 
abolitionists — Effect  of  the  Declaration  of  Rights  on  the  mulattoes — 
The  General  Assembly  drafts  a  new  constitution — First  blood  drawn 
between  revolutionists  and  loyalists  at  Port-au-Prince — Oge's  futile 
attempt  to  liberate  the  mulattoes — Les  Cayes  first  touched  by  revolu- 
tion in  1790,  four  years  after  the  death  of  Audubon's  mother — Emanci- 
pation of  the  mulattoes — Resistance  of  the  whites — General  revolt  of 
blacks  against  whites  and  the  ruin  of  the  colony. 

After  the  American  struggle  for  liberty  had  been 
finally  won,  Captain  Audubon  resigned  his  commission 
held  in  the  United  States  and  returned  to  his  home  at 
Nantes,  but  town  or  country  could  not  hold  him  long. 
Lured  by  the  prospects  of  great  wealth  which  Santo 
Domingo  offered  to  the  merchant  of  those  days,  and 
having  learned  by  long  experience  in  her  ports  the  devi- 
ous methods  by  which  fortunes  were  attained,  he  de- 
cided to  give  up  the  sea  and  embark  in  colonial  trade. 
For  six  years,  from  1783  to  1789,  he  lived  almost  con- 
tinuously in  the  West  Indies,  and  as  merchant,  planter, 
and  dealer  in  slaves  amassed  a  large  fortune.  Mean- 
while his  wife,  who  had  seen  little  of  him  since  their 
marriage  in  1772,  remained  at  Nantes. 

Captain  Audubon  traveled  through  the  United  States 
early  in  1789,  and  again  late  in  that  year  when  on  his 
way  to  France,  probably  in  the  first  instance  returning 

36 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  37 

to  Santo  Domingo  by  way  of  the  Ohio  and  the  Mis- 
sissippi. Symptoms  of  unrest  were  already  prevalent 
in  the  northern  provinces  of  the  island  but  had  caused 
no  serious  alarm  in  the  south.  Jean  Audubon's  aim 
seems  to  have  been  to  collect  debts  due  him  in  the  United 
States  and  to  leave  the  capital  invested  there.  At  all 
events  it  was  on  this  occasion  that  he  purchased  the  farm 
of  "Mill  Grove,"  near  Philadelphia,  the  history  of  which 
will  be  given  a  little  later  (see  Chapter  VII).  He  had 
no  intention,  however,  of  living  in  Pennsylvania,  for  he 
immediately  leased  this  estate  to  its  former  owner  and 
hurried  away. 

July  14,  1789,  found  the  elder  Audubon  enlisted  as 
a  soldier  in  the  National  Guards  at  Les  Cayes.  These 
colonial  troops,  which  were  originally  militia  organiza- 
tions modeled  after  similar  bodies  in  France,  were  reor- 
ganized at  this  time  to  meet  any  possible  emergencies. 
Affairs  in  the  southern  provinces  of  Santo  Domingo 
had  followed,  up  to  this  moment,  their  normal  course, 
and  Jean  Audubon,  who  could  have  learned  nothing  of 
what  had  transpired  at  home,  decided  to  entrust  his 
various  interests  to  the  hands  of  agents  and  return  to 
France.  This  was  probably  in  late  August  or  early 
September,  1789,  as  we  know  that  he  first  returned  to 
the  United  States  and  visited  Richmond,  Virginia,  at 
the  close  of  that  year.1  Strangely  enough,  on  the  twen- 
tieth day  of  the  former  month  the  National  Assembly  at 
Paris  had  voted  the  celebrated  Declaration  of  Rights, 
which  was  destined  to  upturn  the  whole  social  system 
of  Santo  Domingo  and  to  convert  that  island  into  a 
purgatory  of  the  direst  anarchy,  strife,  and  bloodshed 
which  the  world  had  ever  known,  or  at  least  remem- 
bered ;  but  fully  six  weeks  must  have  elapsed  before  news 

^ee  letter  to  Dacosta,  Vol.  I,  p.  121. 


38         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

of  this  grave  decision  could  have  reached  the  colony. 

At  this  time  Jean  Audubon  was  no  doubt  regarded 
as  a  very  rich  man,  and  though  he  happened  to  leave 
Les  Cayes  at  a  critical  moment,  little  could  he  have 
dreamed  of  the  disaster  that  awaited  him  there  as  well 
as  in  his  beloved  France.  His  personal  affairs  during 
this  eventful  period,  involving  as  they  necessarily  do 
the  early  life  of  his  distinguished  son,  have  hitherto  been 
shrouded  in  the  dark  and  sinister  history  of  that  ever 
smiling  but  ever  turbulent  island.  Now,  however,  the 
veil  of  mist  that  has  settled  over  the  page  can  be  pene- 
trated at  the  most  important  points.  In  this  and  sub- 
sequent chapters  we  shall  follow  the  life  of  father  and 
son  through  the  course  of  events  which  has  been  thus 
briefly  summarized. 

To  return  to  the  earlier  threads  of  our  narrative, 
at  about  the  close  of  1783  Captain  Audubon  was  en- 
gaged by  the  Coirond  brothers,  colonial  merchants  at 
Nantes,  to  take  charge  of  their  foreign  trade,  which 
centered  chiefly  at  Les  Cayes,2  Santo  Domingo,  then  a 
most  thriving  and  populous  town,  as  it  is  today  the 
largest  seaport  on  the  southern  coast  of  the  Republic 
of  Haiti.  Their  ships  brought  sugar,  coffee,  cotton  and 
other  West  Indian  products  to  France,  and  laden  with 

3  The  proper  name  of  this  seaport  town,  as  given  by  all  French  cartog- 
raphers and  writers,  is  Les  Cayes,  meaning  "the  cays"  or  "keys"  (small 
islands,  Spanish  cayos) ;  omitting  the  article  it  is  often  simply  written 
"Cayes."  French  residents  on  the  island,  however,  when  dating  or  ad- 
dressing a  letter  or  receipting  a  bill  would  naturally  write  "aux  Cayes," 
meaning  of  course  "at  The  Cays,"  where  the  document  was  signed  or  where 
the  person  to  whom  the  letter  was  addressed  resided  (see  the  Sanson  bill, 
and  bills  of  sale  of  negroes,  Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  1,  4,  5,  and  6). 
It  was  thus  an  easy  step  for  Englishmen,  in  ignorance  or  disregard  of 
the  French  usage,  to  call  the  town  "Aux  Cayes";  even  as  early  as  1797, 
Bryan  Edwards,  though  giving  the  name  correctly  on  his  map,  which  doubt- 
less had  a  French  source,  wrote  "Aux  Cayes"  in  his  text;  the  corruption 
has  survived,  and  is  occasionally  found  in  standard  works,  but  is  too 
egregious  to  be  tolerated. 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  39 

fabrics,  wines  and  every  luxury  known  to  the  colonists 
of  that  day,  returned  to  Les  Cayes,  as  well  as  to  Saint 
Louis,  an  important  port  a  little  farther  to  the  east, 
where  these  merchants  also  possessed  warehouses  and 
stores. 

In  a  short  time  Jean  Audubon  had  acquired  an  in- 
dependent business  of  his  own,  both  as  a  planter  and 
merchant.  He  made  his  home  at  Les  Cayes,  but  ex- 
tended his  enterprises  to  Saint  Louis  and  possibly  to 
other  points.  From  this  time  onward  he  commonly 
described  himself  as  negotiant*  or  merchant,  and  his 
son,  when  writing  to  his  father  from  America,  addressed 
him  in  this  way.  His  business  letters  and  other  docu- 
ments of  the  period  refer  to  his  house  at  Les  Cayes,  his 
plantations  of  cane  and  his  sugar  refinery,  his  exporta- 
tion of  colonial  wares,  his  purchases  of  French  goods, 
particularly  at  Nantes,  and  to  his  trade  in  black  slaves 
which  eventually  assumed  large  proportions.  How  im- 
portant his  sugar  plantations  may  have  been  is  not 
known,  but  a  tax -receipt  shows  that  at  one  time  he  pos- 
sessed forty-two  slaves.4  The  naturalist  said  that  his 
father  acquired  a  plantation  on  the  He  a  Vaches,  an 
island  of  considerable  importance  at  the  southern  bound 
of  the  roadstead  of  Les  Cayes  and  nine  miles  from  the 
town,  but  we  have  found  no  other  reference  to  it. 

Great  numbers  of  negroes  must  have  passed  through 
Jean  Audubon's  hands,  as  shown  by  his  bills  of  sale, 
which  strangely  reflect  the  customs  of  a  much  later  and 
sadder  day  on  the  North  American  continent  (see  Ap- 
pendix I,  Documents  Nos.  4-6).  In  one  of  these  bills, 

8  And  sometime  as  marchand,  more  strictly  a  retailer. 

4  Since  a  colonist's  wealth  was  estimated  upon  the  number  of  slaves 
he  could  afford,  and  since  a  slave  was  regarded  as  equivalent  to  a  return 
of  1,500  francs  a  year,  Jean  Audubon's  income  on  this  basis  would  have 
been  63,000  francs. 


40         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

dated  at  Les  Cayes,  September  16,  1785,  Jean  is  cred- 
ited with  one-half  the  net  proceeds  of  the  sale  of  forty 
negroes,  bought  originally  of  M.  Th.  Johnston  for  the 
sum  of  60,000  francs,  and  sold  by  Jean  Audubon  and 
Messrs.  La  Croix,  Formon  &  Jacques  for  71,552  francs; 
after  deducting  183  francs  for  food  and  treatment,  the 
net  returns  became  71,369  francs,  and  Jean's  profits, 
on  a  half-interest  basis,  5,684  francs,  or  about  142 
francs  per  head.  The  prices  of  these  slaves,  which  were 
sold  to  planters  on  the  island  when  not  retained  for 
their  own  use,  ranged  from  1,500  to  2,100  francs,  or 
from  $300  to  $420,  at  the  present  rate  of  exchange.  It 
is  interesting  to  notice  that  while  these  negroes  were  held 
for  sale,  the  exact  period  of  which  is  not  stated,  they  re- 
ceived as  food  eighty  bunches  of  bananas  and  three  beef 
heads;  though  under  the  care  of  a  physician,  it  is  not 
surprising  to  find  that  one  of  them  died.  Another  bill, 
bearing  date  of  August  7,  1785,  records  the  sale  to  Jean 
Audubon  of  ten  negroes  and  three  negresses  for  a  total 
sum  of  26,000  francs;  16,000  francs  of  this  amount  was 
paid  in  sugar,  but  what  is  particularly  interesting  now 
is  the  fact  that  a  balance  of  2,000  francs  was  finally  can- 
celled on  June  9, 1788,  a  year  or  more  after  Jean  Audu- 
bon, according  to  the  accepted  accounts,  is  supposed  to 
have  lost  his  wife  and  his  property  and  to  have  fled  from 
the  island.  Mme.  Anne  Moynet  Audubon  never  visited 
America,  and  her  husband,  as  we  have  seen,  left  Santo 
Domingo  in  1789,  before  the  outbreak  of  the  revolu- 
tion. His  property  remained  substantially  intact  until 
after  1792,  and  in  some  years,  it  is  believed,  yielded 
him  in  rents  90,000  francs,  which  at  present  rates  in 
American  money  would  be  equivalent  to  $18,000.  In 
giving  his  certificate  of  residence  at  Nantes  in  that 
eventful  year,  Captain  Audubon  publicly  declared  that 


I.ES  CAYES,  HAITI:  THE  WHARF  AND  POST  OFFICE;  AT  THE  LEFT  is  SEEX  A  PILE 

OF    LOGWOOD   AWAITING    SHIPMENT. 


I.ES  CAYES,   HAITI:     THE   MARKET  AND  CHURCH  OF  BACRE   cum. 

After   photographs  made  ;it    I  ,cs  Caves  in  June,   1!)17,  and  obtained   through 

the  kindness  of  Mr.    Ferdinand    I.athrop    Mayer,    Seeretary  of 

Legation,    Port-au-Prince,    Haiti. 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  41 

he  possessed  a  dwelling,  a  sugar  refinery,  and  ware- 
houses or  stores  at  both  Les  Cayes  and  Saint  Louis. 
Moreover,  his  West  Indian  estate  was  not  completely 
settled  until  1820,  two  years  after  his  death. 

Slaves  were  regarded  in  Santo  Domingo  as  an  in- 
dispensable commodity,  as  they  had  been  in  Virginia 
and  the  Carolinas  for  a  century  past,  and  were  still  to 
be  for  three-quarters  of  a  century  to  come;  the  "friends 
of  the  blacks"  as  the  abolitionists  were  called,  were  con- 
sidered by  most  planters  as  the  enemies  of  the  whites. 
Degradation  and  cruelty,  ever  attendant  upon  a  system 
that  drew  its  chief  support  from  the  self-interest  of  a 
class,  were  all  too  common  in  the  island,  yet  there  were 
many  who  earnestly  strove  to  soften  the  lot  of  their 
slaves.  Though  a  born  fighter,  Jean  Audubon  was  hu- 
mane, and  the  evidence,  so  far  as  it  goes,  shows  that 
his  own  slaves  were  treated  with  kindness  and  consid- 
eration. 

This  period  in  Santo  Domingo,  particularly  from 
the  year  1785  to  1789,  not  only  is  important  for  our 
story,  but  happened  to  mark  a  crisis  in  French  sover- 
eignty in  America.  It  will  be  necessary,  therefore,  to 
follow  certain  events  in  a  history  which  can  serve  only 
as  a  warning  to  mankind,  for  it  contains  little  to  satisfy 
the  understanding  and  nothing  to  excite  the  fancy  or 
gladden  the  heart.  It  is  to  be  noticed  first,  however, 
that  according  to  the  accepted  accounts,  John  James 
Audubon  was  born  of  a  Spanish  Creole  mother,  in  Lou- 
isiana, in  1780.  Shortly  after  his  birth,  his  mother  is 
said  to  have  gone  to  Santo  Domingo,  where  she  perished 
in  a  local  uprising  of  the  blacks,  when  Jean  Audubon's 
plantations  and  property  were  totally  destroyed;  Jean 
managed  to  escape  with  only  his  two  children,  a  few 
faithful  slaves,  and  a  part  of  his  money  and  valuables, 


42         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

to  New  Orleans,  whence  he  subsequently  went  to 
France.  Investigation  of  existing  records  has  proved 
that  these  statements  are  not  in  accord  with  the  facts, 
but  before  entering  into  further  personal  details  it  will 
be  well  to  examine  those  conditions  on  the  island  of 
Santo  Domingo  which  led  many  into  easy  fortune  only 
to  involve  them  later  in  a  ruin  as  complete  and  irre- 
trievable as  it  was  unforeseen  and  unnecessary. 

For  nearly  a  hundred  years  the  western  half  of  Santo 
Domingo  had  been  held  by  France,  and  to  every  out- 
ward appearance  it  had  enjoyed  such  unbounded  and 
steadily  increasing  prosperity  that  it  was  regarded  with 
envy  on  every  side;  in  fine,  it  seemed  to  be  one  of  the 
richest  and  most  desirable  colonies  in  the  whole  world. 
Historians,  said  an  observer  of  a  later  day,5  were  "never 
weary  of  enumerating  the  amount  of  its  products,  the 
great  trade,  the  warehouses  full  of  sugar,  cotton,  coffee, 
indigo  and  cocoa;  its  plains  covered  with  splendid 
estates,  its  hillsides  dotted  with  noble  houses;  a  white 
population,  rich,  refined,  enjoying  life  as  only  a  luxuri- 
ous colonial  society  can  enjoy  it."  Few  could  then  see 
the  foul  blot  beneath  so  fair  a  surface,  or  realize  that 
what  had  been  bought  by  the  misery  and  blood  of  a 
prostrate  race  would  demand  an  equivalent,  and  that  a 
settlement  might  be  forced. 

Negroes  had  been  imported  into  Santo  Domingo 
from  the  African  coasts  in  incredible  numbers,  first  by 
Spain  after  she  had  succeeded  in  exterminating  the  in- 
offensive native  Caribs,  and  later  by  France.  One  hun- 
dred thousand  blacks  of  all  ages  were  entering  the  col- 
onies each  year,  and  to  secure  this  number  of  bossals, 
as  the  native  Africans  were  called,  involved  the  death 

5  See  Sir  Spencer  St.  John,  Hayti,  or  the  Black  Republic,  3d  ed.  (New 
York,  1889). 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  43 

of  nearly  as  many  more,  either  through  the  fighting  that 
preceded  their  capture  on  land,  or  from  the  terrors  of 
pestilence  or  shipwreck  that  awaited  them  at  sea.  By 
1790  the  blacks  of  Santo  Domingo  outnumbered  the 
whites  sixteen  to  one,  and  the  number  of  blacks  then  in 
the  island  was  estimated  at  480,000,  in  contrast  to  30,800 
whites,  and  about  24,000  free  mulattoes  or  "people  of 
color." 

Under  French  rule  the  blacks  had  been  subjected, 
as  many  believed,  to  a  system  of  slavery  unsurpassed 
for  cruelty  and  barbarity.  No  doubt  there  were  French- 
men who,  in  their  fierce  struggle  to  become  rich,  worked 
their  slaves  beyond  human  endurance  and  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  terrorize  them  with  the  severest  punishment  upon 
the  first  symptoms  of  revolt;  but,  on  the  whole,  such 
sweeping  denunciations  were  probably  unjust.  An 
impartial  observer  and  historian  of  that  day,  himself  an 
Englishman,6  declared  that  the  French  treated  their 
slaves  quite  as  well  as  the  English  did  theirs,  and 
clothed  them  better.  He  believed  that  the  lot  of  the 
Santo  Domingo  blacks  at  the  period  of  which  we  speak 
would  compare  favorably  with  that  of  the  peasantry  of 
Europe,  a  comment  made  familiar  to  American  ears 
when  applied  to  the  slave  population  of  the  South.  The 
real  trouble  came  from  the  more  enlightened  disaffec- 
tion of  the  mulattoes  and  free  negroes,  fanned  by  the 
fanatic  zeal  of  abolitionists  abroad,  particularly  of  those 
who  formed  the  society  of  Les  Amis  des  Noirs  in 
France,  who  were  determined  to  carry  out  their  policies 
by  any  means  and  at  whatever  cost. 

The  mulattoes  were  really  in  worse  plight  than  the 
actual  slaves,  for  they  were  virtually  slaves  of  the  State 

9  Bryan  Edwards,  Esq.,  M.R,  F.R.S.,  &c.,  An  Historical  Survey  of  the 
French  Colony  in  the  Island  of  San  Domingo  (London,  1797). 


44         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

and  had  no  master  to  whom  they  could  appeal,  being 
subject  to  military  service  without  pay,  to  the  corvee 
or  labor  upon  the  highways,  the  hardships  of  which 
were  insupportable,  as  well  as  to  a  constant  and  galling 
tyranny.  The  law  was  invariably  framed  in  favor  of 
the  white  man,  who,  if  he  struck  a  mulatto,  was  subject 
to  a  trivial  fine,  while  retaliation  by  the  man  of  color 
might  cost  him  his  right  hand.  It  should  be  added, 
however,  that  custom  was  usually  more  lenient  than  the 
law,  and  that  such  atrocious  enactments  were  generally 
a  dead  letter. 

As  might  have  been  expected  in  the  circumstances, 
the  mulattoes  took  their  revenge  on  the  despised  blacks, 
whom  they  were  permitted  to  hold  as  slaves.  They 
were  notoriously  the  hardest  taskmasters  in  the  island, 
and  in  return  they  were  naturally  envied  and  hated  by 
the  ignorant  mass  of  black  humanity.  The  whites,  to 
complete  the  discord,  were  divided  among  themselves, 
the  Frenchmen  from  Europe  affecting  a  superiority 
over  the  white  Creoles,  the  seasoned  natives  of  the 
island,  a  condition  that  never  made  for  good  feeling. 
Moreover,  the  white  planter,  who  endeavored  to  gain  a 
foothold  by  producing  sugar,  cotton  or  coffee,  seems  to 
have  had  a  just  grievance  against  the  merchants  whom 
the  law  favored  and  who  set  the  price  for  negroes  and 
all  other  commodities  that  had  to  be  bought  in  exchange 
for  produce.  Such  at  least  was  the  conviction  and  ex- 
perience of  a  keen  observer,  Francis  Alexander  Stanis- 
laus, Baron  de  Wimpff en,7  who  went  to  Santo  Domingo 
in  1788,  tried  to  establish  himself  as  a  coffee  planter  at 
Jaquemel,  on  the  southern  coast  not  far  from  Les 
Cayes,  and  after  three  years  of  fruitless  effort,  gave  up 
the  attempt  in  disgust,  glad  to  escape,  as  from  the  flames 

1  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  31. 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  45 

of  purgatory,  to  the  United  States,  where  he  settled 
in  Pennsylvania.  Baron  de  Wimpffen's  lack  of  success 
no  doubt  colored  his  impressions  of  the  country  to  some 
extent,  but  after  making  due  allowance  on  this  score, 
we  find  in  his  letters,  beyond  a  doubt,  an  essentially 
true  picture  of  Santo  Domingan  society  and  plantation 
life  at  the  very  time  and  place  with  which  our  story  is 
most  intimately  concerned.  A  sketch  of  the  picture 
which  the  Baron  has  drawn,  though  in  brief  outline, 
will  enable  us  better  to  understand  the  real  condition  of 
affairs. 

The  prevailing  taste  in  Santo  Domingo,  according 
to  this  observer,  was  creolian  tinctured  with  boucan,  or 
with  the  characteristics  of  the  buccaneers.  White  so- 
ciety on  the  island  was  divided  into  governmental  or 
town  officials,  merchants,  and  planters,  the  several 
classes  having  their  own  interests,  which  were  often  con- 
flicting. The  planters  were  concerned  only  with  ne- 
groes, their  sugar,  their  cotton  or  their  coffee,  and  could 
talk  of  nothing  else;  values  were  reckoned  in  negroes, 
or  in  sugar,  for  which  slaves  were  commonly  exchanged. 
The  laxity  of  morals,  the  absence  of  schools,  and  the 
total  lack  of  books  were  patent  on  every  hand.  After 
sunset  dancing  was  the  chief  form  of  amusement  in  the 
towns,  and  handsome  mulattoes  were  the  acknowledged 
Bacchantes  of  the  island.  It  was  from  this  class  that 
housekeepers  were  usually  chosen  by  the  greater  part  of 
the  unmarried  whites.  They  had  "some  skill,"  said 
Baron  de  Wimpffen,  "in  the  management  of  a  family, 
sufficient  honesty  to  attach  themselves  invariably  to  one 
man,  and  great  goodness  of  heart.  More  than  one 
European,  abandoned  by  his  selfish  brethren,  has  found 
in  them  all  the  solicitude  of  the  most  tender,  the  most 
constant,  the  most  generous  humanity,  without  being  in- 


46         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

debted  for  it  to  any  other  sentiment  than  benevolence." 
Expense  of  cultivation  at  this  time  is  said  to  have 
risen  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  value  of  the  product. 
While  negro  service  was  a  prime  necessity  to  the  planter, 
the  African  mine  was  becoming  exhausted;  even  then 
slave  dealers  were  penetrating  a  thousand  leagues  or 
more  from  the  Guinea  coast.  Added  to  the  cost  of 
slaves,  which  was  yearly  increasing  and  had  already 
reached  to  2,000  or  even  3,000  francs  per  head,  the  Gov- 
ernment exacted  a  ruinous  capitation  tax,  which  bore 
with  special  weight  on  the  planter.8  Physicians  and 
lawyers,  however  ignorant,  exacted  exorbitant  fees; 
masons  and  carpenters,  however  inefficient,  demanded 
an  unreasonable  wage;  they,  we  are  told,  with  the  mer- 
chant and  official  governmental  class,  were  the  only 
money  makers  on  the  island.  The  merchant  whom  we 
have  seen  taking  the  planter's  produce  at  his  own  price, 
in  exchange  for  slaves  again  at  his  own  price,  had  the 
advantage  in  every  business  transaction;  the  planter,  as 
a  result,  was  his  chronic  debtor,  and  at  usurious  rates. 

Subject  to  an  enervating  climate,  which  Europeans 
with  their  intemperate  habits  could  seldom  endure  for 
long,  the  planter,  though  weak  and  sick  himself,  was 
often  obliged  to  be  overseer,  driver,  apothecary,  and 
nurse  to  his  negroes,  the  slave  of  his  slaves.  In  spite 
of  every  care,  out  of  one  hundred  imported  negroes  the 
mortality  was  nearly  twenty  per  cent  in  the  first  year. 
Where  less  oversight  was  given  to  their  food,  the  slight- 
est scratch  was  likely  to  degenerate  into  a  dangerous 
wound,  while  the  most  dreaded  disease,  then  known  in 
English  as  the  "yaws"  and  in  French  as  la  grosse  verole 

8  The  Superior  Council,  sitting  at  Port-au-Prince,  in  1780  fixed  the  tax 
for  the  parish  of  Les  Cayes  at  the  rate  of  2  francs,  10  centimes  per 
head,  which  in  this  instance  was  certainly  trifling.  (Note  furnished  by 
M.  L.  Lavigne.) 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  47 

(to  distinguish  it  from  the  smallpox,  la  petite  verole), 
was  a  scourge  for  which  no  remedy  had  then  been  found. 
Every  slave  was  branded  with  a  hot  iron  on  the  breast, 
with  both  the  name  of  his  master  and  that  of  the  parish 
to  which  he  belonged,  but  notwithstanding  such  pre- 
cautions desertions  were  far  from  uncommon. 

The  Santo  Domingan  blacks  were  put  to  work  in 
the  morning  with  a  crack  of  the  arceau,  a  short-handled 
whip,  delivered  on  their  backs  or  shoulders,  and  so  ac- 
customed had  they  become  to  the  regularity  of  this 
stimulus  that  they  could  hardly  be  set  in  motion  with- 
out it.  How  to  manage  the  true  bossal,  as  distinguished 
from  the  African  Creole,  with  humanity  and  success  was 
a  problem  to  which  many  considerate  planters  must 
have  addressed  themselves  in  vain,  if,  as  this  one  de- 
clared, the  black's  ruling  passion  was  to  do  nothing,  and 
he  was  by  nature  a  thief,  to  whom  indulgence  was  weak- 
ness and  injustice  a  defect  of  judgment  that  excited 
both  his  hatred  and  his  contempt. 

Stanilaus  further  observed  that  the  soil  of  Santo 
Domingo  was  then  already  becoming  exhausted,  and  he 
believed  that  the  day  of  rapid  fortunes  for  the  planter 
had  passed.  "Calculate  now,"  said  he,  "the  privations 
of  every  kind,  the  commercial  vicissitudes,  the  perpetual 
apprehensions,  the  disgusting  details,  inseparable  from 
the  nature  of  slavery;  the  state  of  languor  or  anxiety 
in  which  he  vegetates  between  a  burning  sky,  and  a  soil 
always  ready  to  swallow  him  up,  and  you  will  allow 
with  me  that  there  is  no  peasant,  no  day-labourer  in 
Europe,  whose  condition  is  not  preferable  to  that  of  a 
planter  of  San  Domingo."  "I  never  met,"  he  adds, 
"a  West  Indian  in  France  who  did  not  enumerate  to 
me  with  more  emphasis  than  accuracy,  the  charms  of  a 
residence  at  Saint  Domingo;  since  I  have  been  here,  I 


48         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

have  not  found  a  single  one  who  has  not  cursed  both 
Saint  Domingo,  and  the  obstacles,  eternally  reviving, 
which,  from  one  year  to  another,  prolong  his  stay  in 
this  abode  of  the  damned." 

Having  followed  De  Wimpffen  to  this  point,  the 
reader  is  entitled  to  hear  his  parting  epigrams.  "The 
more  I  know,"  he  said,  of  the  inhabitants  of  Saint  Do- 
mingo, "the  more  I  felicitate  myself  on  quitting  it.  I 
came  hither  with  the  noble  ambition  of  occupying  myself 
solely  in  acquiring  a  fortune;  but  destined  to  become  a 
master,  and  consequently  to  possess  slaves,  I  saw,  in 
the  necessity  of  living  with  them,  that  of  studying  them 
with  attention  to  know  them,  and  I  depart  with  much 
less  esteem  for  the  one,  and  pity  for  the  other.  When  a 
person  is  what  the  greater  part  of  the  planters  are,  he 
is  made  to  have  slaves ;  when  he  is  what  the  greater  part 
of  the  slaves  are,  he  is  made  to  have  a  master." 

Whether  Jean  Audubon's  long  experience  would 
have  confirmed  all  that  has  just  been  said  is  doubtful, 
for  he  was  primarily  a  merchant  or  dealer  and  thus  be- 
longed to  the  favored  class.  But  what  especially  inter- 
ests us  now  is  that  both  he  and  De  Wimpffen  were 
owners  of  plantations  in  the  southern  province  of  Santo 
Domingo  at  the  same  time.  The  one  who  wished  to 
retain  a  valuable  property  followed  the  custom  of  the 
time  by  confiding  the  management  of  his  affairs  to  an 
agent,  either  at  a  fixed  salary  or  on  a  profit-sharing 
basis;  while  the  other,  who  stayed  long  enough  to  dis- 
cern the  trend  of  events,  was  glad  to  sell  his  land  and 
his  slaves  and  shake  the  dust  of  the  island  from  his  feet 
forever.9 

Before  resuming  the  intimate  details  of  our  narra- 

9  Baron  de  Wimpffen  sailed  from  Port-au-Prince  for  Norfolk,  Virginia, 
in  July,  1790,  about  a  year  after  Jean  Audubon  had  left  the  island. 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  49 

live,  we  must  follow  the  whirlwind  of  political  events 
already  set  in  motion  in  the  island  colony.  In  the  spring 
of  1789  the  white  colonists  of  Santo  Domingo  took  ad- 
ministrative matters  into  their  own  hands,  and  without 
vestige  of  legal  authority,  elected  and  dispatched  eight- 
een deputies  to  the  States-General,  then  sitting  in 
France.  These  men  reached  Versailles  in  June,  a  month 
after  that  body  had  declared  itself  the  National  Assem- 
bly, but  only  six  were  ever  admitted  to  its  counsels. 
For  a  long  time  opposition  to  the  planters  had  been 
fomented  in  Paris  by  the  "Friends  of  the  Blacks,"  the 
abolition  society  to  which  we  have  referred;  stories  of 
cruelty  to  the  slaves,  colored  and  intensified  in  passing 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  as  invariably  happens  when 
atrocity  tales  are  used  as  partisan  weapons,  added  to 
the  arrogance  and  extravagant  habits  of  many  planters 
when  resident  in  the  mother  country,  did  not  tend  to 
soften  the  prejudice  of  the  public  towards  their  class. 
The  planters  could  get  no  consideration  at  home,  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Declaration  of  Rights  followed 
promptly  in  August,  while  a  legislative  Assembly  was 
ordered  in  September.  Meantime  the  mulattoes  on  the 
island  were  clamoring  for  the  political  rights  which  the 
decree  had  promised  them,  and,  to  make  matters  worse, 
some  of  the  influential  whites  espoused  their  cause,  even 
preaching  the  enfranchisement  of  the  blacks,  from  whom 
up  to  this  time  little  had  been  heard.  In  short,  the 
whites  were  divided  as  effectually  as  were  blacks  and 
mulattoes. 

The  dominant  party  in  Santo  Domingo,  led  by  the 
Governor-General,  were  determined  to  uphold  the  old 
despotic  regime,  while  the  General  Assembly,  which  met 
at  Saint  Marc  in  obedience  to  orders  from  the  mother 
country,  on  April  16,  1790,  drafted  a  new  constitution. 


50         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

The  clash  came  in  July  of  this  year,  and  in  the  northern 
province,  where  the  first  blood  of  the  revolution  was 
drawn  at  Port-au-Prince.  On  October  12,  1790,  James 
Oge,  a  mulatto,  inspired,  financed  and  equipped  by  the 
"Friends  of  the  Blacks"  in  Paris,  landed  secretly  in 
Santo  Domingo,  established  a  military  camp  at  Cap 
Fran9ois  and  called  all  mulattoes  to  arms.  His  plan 
was  to  wage  war  on  the  whites  as  well  as  upon  all  mulat- 
toes who  refused  to  join  his  standard  of  revolt;  but  Oge 
and  his  company  were  quickly  suppressed,  and  this  in- 
competent leader,  who  fled  to  Spanish  territory,  was 
later  extradited  and  broken  on  the  wheel.  This  episode 
naturally  infuriated  the  whites  against  all  mulattoes, 
who  took  up  arms  at  Les  Cayes  and  at  other  points. 
The  whites  also  armed,  and  a  skirmish  occurred  at  Les 
Cayes,  Jean  Audubon's  old  home,  where  fifty  persons 
on  both  sides  lost  their  lives,  but  a  temporary  truce  was 
immediately  effected.  This  was  the  first  serious  inci- 
dent in  which  the  town  of  Les  Cayes  figured  in  the 
bloody  revolution  of  Santo  Domingo;  it  occurred,  we 
believe,  in  the  late  autumn  of  1790.  Audubon's  mother 
had  then  been  dead  four  years,  and  her  son,  the  future 
naturalist,  had  left  the  country  in  the  fall  of  1789;  in 
order  to  bring  out  these  facts  clearly  it  has  seemed  neces- 
sary to  enter  into  this  detail. 

Later  events  in  Santo  Domingo  now  moved  in  a 
direction  and  with  a  velocity  which  few  then  were  able 
to  comprehend.  The  danger  and  the  potency  of  the 
volcano  that  had  long  been  muttering  beneath  their 
feet  needed  but  a  few  touches  from  without  to  reveal 
its  full  explosive  power.  These  were  furnished  not  only 
by  the  mulattoes,  many  of  whom,  after  having  fought 
under  French  officers  in  the  American  Revolution,  had 
returned  to  the  island  and  there  spread  wide  the  spirit 


PLANTER  AND  MERCHANT  51 

of  disaffection  and  revolt;  but  also  by  the  National 
Assembly  in  France,  which  by  its  vacillating  policies 
destroyed  every  hope  of  reconciliation.  In  March,  1790, 
this  Assembly  granted  to  the  citizens  of  Santo  Domingo 
the  right  of  local  self-government,  but  only  a  year  later, 
on  May  15,  1791,  tore  up  this  decree  and  emancipated 
the  mulattoes.  When  the  news  reached  the  island  six 
weeks  later,  the  colony  was  thrown  into  the  utmost  con- 
sternation; the  whites  as  a  class  refused  point-blank  to 
accept  the  decision  and  summoned  an  Assembly  of  their 
own,  which  met  in  August.  The  mulattoes  again  took 
up  arms,  and  the  blacks,  who  by  this  time  had  been  won 
to  their  side,  started  a  general  revolt  which  had  its  origin 
on  a  plantation  called  "Noe,"  in  the  parish  of  Acul, 
nine  miles  from  Cap  Francois.  They  began  by  burning 
the  cane  fields  and  the  sugar  houses  and  murdering  their 
white  owners.  Thenceforth  Santo  Domingan  history 
becomes  an  intricate  and  disgusting  detail  of  conspira- 
cies, treacheries,  murders,  conflagrations,  and  atrocities 
of  every  description.  The  only  ray  of  light  comes  from 
the  first  genuine  leader  of  the  blacks,  the  gallant  but 
unfortunate  Toussaint,  in  1793. 

As  has  already  been  intimated,  Jean  Audubon's 
Santo  Domingo  property  suffered  long  after  he  left  the 
island,  and  certainly  after  1792  when,  as  we  shall  soon 
see,  revolutions  were  demanding  his  attention  and  all 
his  energies  at  home. 


CHAPTER   IV 

AUDUBON'S  BIRTH,  NATIONALITY,  AND  PARENTAGE 

Les  Cayes — Audubon's  French  Creole  mother — His  early  names — Discovery 
of  the  Sanson  bill  with  the  only  record  of  his  birth — Medical  practice 
of  an  early  day — Birth  of  Muguet,  Audubon's  sister — Fougere  and 
Muguet  taken  to  France — Audubon's  adoption  and  baptism — His  as- 
sumed name — Dual  personality  in  legal  documents — Source  of  pub- 
lished errors — Autobiographic  records — Rise  of  enigma  and  tradition — 
The  Marigny  myth. 

Santo  Domingo,  though  repeatedly  ravaged  by  the 
indiscriminate  hand  of  man,  is  a  noble  and  productive 
land,  which,  for  the  diversity  and  grandeur  of  its  scenery 
and  the  rare  beauty  of  its  tropical  vegetation,  was  justly 
regarded  as  one  of  the  garden  spots  of  the  West  Indies 
and  worthy  to  be  in  truth  a  "Paradise  of  the  New 
World."  For  every  lover  of  birds  and  nature  this  semi- 
tropical  island,  and  especially  Les  Cayes,  upon  its  south- 
westerly verge  in  what  is  now  Haiti,  will  have  a  pe- 
culiar interest  when  it  is  known  that  there,  amid  the 
splendor  of  sea  and  sun  and  the  ever-glorious  flowers 
and  birds,  the  eyes  of  America's  great  woodsman  and 
pioneer  ornithologist  first  saw  the  light  of  day. 

Jean  Audubon  met  somewhere  in  America,  and 
probably  at  Les  Cayes,  a  woman  whom  he  has  described 
only  as  a  "creole  of  Santo  Domingo,"  that  is,  one  born 
on  the  island  and  of  French  parentage,  and  who  is  now 
known  only  by  the  name  of  Mile.  Rabin.1  To  them  was 

1  This  was  one  of  the  commonest  names  among  the  French  Creoles  of 
Santo  Domingo,  and  was  possibly  assumed,  though  the  evidence  is  in- 
conclusive. See  Vol.  I,  p.  61. 

52 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  53 

born,  at  Les  Cayes,  a  son,  on  the  twenty-sixth  of  April, 
1785.  This  boy,  who  was  sometimes  referred  to  in  early 
documents  as  "Jean  Rabin,  Creole  de  Saint-Domingue/' 
and  who  again  was  called  "Fougere"  (in  English, 
"Fern"),  received  the  baptismal  name  of  Jean  Jacques 
Fougere  six  months  before  his  sixteenth  birthday. 

The  bill  of  the  physician,  Doctor  Sanson  of  Les 
Cayes,  who  assisted  at  young  Audubon's  birth  still 
exists,  and  as  the  reader  will  perceive,  it  is  a  highly 
unique  and  interesting  historical  document.2  Written 
in  the  doctor's  own  hand,  it  is  receipted  by  him,  as  well 
as  approved  and  signed  by  Jean  Audubon  himself. 
This  tardy  discovery,  along  with  other  pertinent  records 
in  the  commune  of  Coueron,  in  France,  finally  resolves 
the  mystery  which  has  ever  hedged  the  Melchizedek  of 
American  natural  history.  The  child's  name,  of  course, 
is  not  given  in  the  bill,  but  authentic  records  of  Audu- 
bon's subsequent  adoption  and  baptism  agree  so  com- 
pletely in  names  and  dates  as  to  establish  his  identity 
beyond  a  shadow  of  doubt.  Much  other  documentary 
evidence  which  also  has  recently  come  to  light  is  all  in 
harmony  with  these  facts,  and  further  shows  that  the 
natal  spot  and  time  as  given  in  the  Sanson  bill  can  refer 
only  to  this  talented  boy.  But  before  turning  to  these 
legal  documents  we  must  examine  the  personal  record 
of  Jean  Audubon's  physician. 

Dr.  Sanson's  carefully  itemized  account,  to  the 
amount  of  1,339  francs,  extends  over  a  period  of  nearly 
two  years,  from  December  29,  1783,  to  October  19, 
1785 ;  it  was  accepted  and  signed  by  Captain  Audubon 
on  October  12,  1786,  and  receipted  by  the  doctor  when 

8  For  photographic  reproduction  see  p.  54;  and  for  transliteration 
and  translation,  Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  1  and  la;  for  "Fougere" 
see  Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  2  and  3;  and  for  "Jean  Rabin,"  Docu- 
ments Nos.  14,  16,  17  and  18. 


54         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

paid  on  June  7,  1787.  The  bill  is  interesting  as  a  com- 
mentary on  the  medical  practice  of  an  early  day,  as  well 
as  for  the  light  which  it  throws  on  Jean  Audubon's 
Santo  Domingan  career,  his  establishment  at  Les  Cayes, 
and  his  treatment  of  black  slaves  and  dependents.  This 
quaint  document,  moreover,  tends  to  confirm  a  remark 
of  Baron  de  Wimpff en  to  the  effect  that  every  doctor  in 
Santo  Domingo  grew  rich  at  his  profession,  and  also 
recalls  what  he  said  in  regard  to  the  household  remedies 
of  the  period.  "Every  colonist,"  to  quote  this  observer 
again,  "is  commonly  provided  with  a  small  chest  of 
medicines,  of  which  the  principal  are  manna,  salts,  and 
rhubarb ;  the  country  itself  produces  tamarinds,  and  the 
leaves  of  the  cassia  tree,  a  slight  infusion  of  which,  with 
a  little  orange  juice,  makes  as  good  a  purge  as  a  mixture 
more  scientifically  composed." 

This  physician's  chief  resources  are  seen  to  have 
been  ipecacuanha,  purgative  decoctions,  including  such 
as  the  tamarind  tree  provided,  manna,  mineral  waters, 
lotions,  plasters,  and  kino,  an  astringent  juice  derived 
from  different  leguminous  plants,  which  gave  a  red  color 
to  the  saliva,  not  to  speak  of  "other  medicines,"  the  na- 
ture of  which  is  not  revealed,  which  were  liberally  sup- 
plied to  whites  and  blacks,  both  old  and  young,  alike. 
It  will  be  noticed  further  that  the  slaves  of  African 
birth  when  not  named  are  referred  to  as  "bossals" 
though  many  young  blacks  and  mulattoes  are  called 
"Joue";3  that  a  cooper,  attached  presumably  to  the 

8 The  word  "Joue"  which  occurs  eleven  times  in  this  document — as 
"mulatto  Joue,"  "Joue  mulatto,"  "negro  bossal  named  Joue,"  and  "little 
negro  Joue"— suggests  the  English  equivalent  "Cheek,"  but  no  such  usage 
appears  to  be  authorized.  It  is  evidently  a  proper  name,  and  is  more 
likely  to  prove  the  French  rendering  of  a  word  common  to  one  of  the 
negro  dialects  of  the  island.  On  the  other  hand  it  might  represent  a 
corrupted  pet  name,  like  "joujou"  or  "bijou"  bestowed  by  the  French 
Creoles  of  Santo  Domingo  upon  their  favorite  ntgrillons  or  petits  n&gres, 


imsi    PAC.K  or  'i- 1 IK   mi. i.  HI: \ ;i)i:m:ii  HY   DH.  SANSON,  OK  I.F.S  CAYKS,  SANTO  DOMTXGO,  TO 

.n:\x    Arnrnox    rou    Miinic  \i.  si-:uvic'i-:s   i  i{<»i    DKCKMHKK   ~f),    ITS!},  TO 

oc Toi!i:i{    If),   1?S,>. 

After  tlir  original  document  in  possession  of  M.  I..  I-a\i<inc,  ;tt  C'OIHTOD.     '1  'lie  note 

in  upper  left-hand  corner,  "tres  eurieux  .Mll«'.   Hahin  (Jt  son  enfant,"' 

has  been  added  l>v  a  later  hand. 


4%       / 

/5KV  A*uk./»*aJ<t4 


fy 


SECOND   PAGE    OF   THE    SAXSON    BILL,   BEARING,   IN    THE    ENTRY    FOR    APRIL   26,    1785,   THE 
ONLY  RECORD   KNOWN   TO  EXIST  OF  THE   DATE   OF  AIJDUBON's  BIRTH. 


TJIIKI)    I'AdJ.   (II     'Illi:    SANSON    HII. I.,   SK1NKI)   AS   ACCKl'TKl)   BV    JKAN    Al'lJTUON,   OCTDHKK    12, 

I7s(j.    \SD  IM:C  i:ir'i  I:D  uv  Tin:  not'l'oK,  u  III:N    run,  .ITNK  7,   1  T87. 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  55 

Audubon  sugar  refinery,  was  dosed  thrice  daily  with 
kino  on  four  days  in  succession;  and  that  this  favorite 
treatment  was  repeated  a  month  later.  A  clerk  in  the 
establishment,  Monsieur  Aubinais,  is  mentioned  as  re- 
quiring frequent  attention,  as  well  as  Jean  Audubon 
himself,  who  was  once  bled  at  the  arm. 

In  the  entry  for  March  27,  1784,  there  is  this  inter- 
esting reference:  "Inoculated  Caesar,  Jupiter,  and 
Rose,  at  thirty  francs  each,  ninety  francs" ;  and  if  there 
were  any  doubt  why  Csesar  had  been  inoculated,  a  hint 
is  immediately  given  under  May  11:  "For  attention, 
visits,  and  remedies,  during  the  smallpox  (la  petite 
verole)  of  the  mulatto  Joue,  sixty  francs";  again  we 
read:  "June  30,  inoculated  a  little  negro  bossal,  named 
Joue,  thirty  francs."  Every  fresh  batch  of  negroes 
landed  in  the  colonies  led  to  a  new  outbreak  of  this 
terrible  scourge,  and  but  one  other  disease,  la  grosse 
verole*  was  more  common  or  more  fatal  among  the 
blacks.  For  a  long  period  it  had  been  a  common  prac- 
tice to  inoculate  both  whites  and  blacks  directly  with 
the  smallpox  in  order  to  secure  some  degree  of  protec- 
tion against  its  most  virulent  form,  but  this  method  of 
fighting  the  devil  with  fire  had  its  disadvantages.  By 
the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  opinion  was  about 
equally  divided  upon  the  advisability  of  continuing  the 
measure,  since  induced  variola  or  smallpox  was  apt  to 
be  virulent,  and  was  often  quite  as  infectious  as  when 
manifested  in  the  usual  and  natural  way.  Then  came 
Edward  Jenner's  grand  discovery,  made  twelve  years 
before  this  date  but  not  announced  until  1798,  that  vac- 
cinia would  prevent  variola.  Almost  immediately  vac- 

which  played  a  more  or  less  ornamental  rdle  in  many  households,  whether 
as  footmen  or  servants.  In  any  case  the  use  of  this  word  is  doubtless 
purely  local. 

4  See  Vol.  I,  p.  46. 


56         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

cination  spread  like  wild  fire  over  Europe,  and  it  has 
never  been  appreciated  more  fully  or  more  highly  lauded 
by  the  best  representatives  of  the  medical  profession 
everywhere  than  at  the  present  day. 

The  most  interesting  references  in  this  historic 
document  are  to  "Mile.  Rabin,"  whose  name  occurs  no 
less  than  seventeen  times,  beginning  May  21,  1784,  and 
closing  with  the  entry  for  the  seventeenth  of  August, 
1785.  We  learn  that  the  physician  spent  the  nights  of 
April  24  and  25,  1785,  at  the  woman's  bedside,  and  that 
her  child  was  born  on  the  twenty-sixth  day  of  that 
month,  probably  in  the  morning.  It  will  be  noticed  fur- 
ther that  she  had  been  bled  previously  at  the  arm,  that 
she  had  suffered  also  from  the  erysipelas,  and  that  later 
she  was  treated  for  abscesses.  These  frequent  attentions 
of  the  physician,  extending  over  several  months,  the  last 
record  being  for  August  17,  show  only  too  clearly  that  at 
this  time  Audubon's  mother  was  in  feeble  health.  All 
that  is  further  known  about  her  is  that  she  died  either  at 
the  close  of  1785  or  in  1786,  when  her  infant  son  was 
probably  less  than  a  year  old.5 

A  daughter  of  Jean  Audubon,  Rosa,  who  was  first 
called  Muguet  (in  English,  "Lily  of  the  Valley"),  was 
also  born  in  Santo  Domingo,  and  probably  at  Les  Cayes, 
on  April  29,  1787.  Her  mother,  Catharine  Bouffard, 
" creole  de  Saint-Domingue"  who  subsequently  went  to 
France,  had  another  daughter,  born  also  at  Les  Cayes, 
named  Louise,  who  was  living  at  La  Rochelle  in  1819.6 

"It  was  stated  in  the  act  of  adoption,  which  was  drawn  up  in  March, 
1794,  that  Audubon's  mother  had  then  been  dead  "about  eight  years," 
and  the  testimony  of  the  Sanson  bill  shows  that  she  was  alive  as  late  as 
October,  1785. 

'The  following  letter  of  inquiry  concerning  Louise  was  written  by 
Rosa's  husband  when  Jean  Audubon's  will  was  being  attacked  in  the  courts 
at  Nantes.  It  is  dated  at  Coueron,  June  26,  1819,  and  is  addressed  to 
"Monsieur  Carpentier  Chesse,  engraver,  place  Royale,  Nantes:" 

"Following  the  friendly  offer  that  you  made  me,  I  have  the  honor  of 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  57 

When  Captain  Audubon  finally  left  the  West  Indies 
in  the  autumn  of  1789,  he  took  with  him,  in  the  care  of 
trustworthy  slaves,  these  two  children,  Fougere  or  Jean 
Rabin,  aged  four  and  a  half  years,  and  Muguet  or 
Rosa,  an  infant  of  less  than  two.  We  know  that  he 
visited  Richmond,  Virginia,  to  collect  a  long  outstanding 
claim  against  David  Ross,  then  engaged  in  an  iron  in- 
dustry near  that  city  (see  Chapter  VIII,  p.  121),  and 
it  is  possible  that  he  traveled  by  way  of  New 
Orleans  and  the  Mississippi  and  Ohio  rivers.  After 
spending  some  time  at  the  close  of  this  year  in  the 
United  States,  he  went  to  France  and  made  a  home 
for  his  children  at  Nantes.  This  city  became  essen- 
tially their  permanent  abode  until  their  father's  retire- 
ment from  the  navy  on  January  1, 1801,  when  he  finally 
settled  in  the  little  commune  of  Coueron,  on  the  north 
bank  of  the  Loire.  The  storm  that  burst  over  Nantes 
soon  after  their  arrival  revealed  the  true  colors  of  Jean 
Audubon's  patriotism,  and  the  man  was  seen  at  his  best, 
as  will  be  related  in  the  following  chapter. 

Madame  Audubon,  who  had  no  children  of  her  own, 
tenderly  received  the  little  ones,  thus  wafted  from  over 
the  sea  to  her  door  in  the  Rue  de  Crebillon.7  As  the 

asking  you  to  undertake,  at  your  next  visit  to  La  Rochelle,  the  following 
inquiries : 

"1.  There  should  be  at  La  Rochelle  (it  is  thought  at  the  home  of 
the  widow  Scipiot)  a  Miss  Louise  Bouffard,  born  at  Les  Cayes,  Santo 
Domingo,  in  America. 

"What  is  her  position?  What  is  she  doing?  What  is  her  conduct?  In 
short  I  should  like  to  know  absolutely  all  about  her,  being  charged  by 
the  Madame,  her  mother,  to  make  all  inquiries." 

(Translated  from  original  in  French,  Lavigne  MSS.) 

7  A  principal  street  in  the  old  quarters  of  Nantes,  leading  from  the 
Place  Royale  to  Place  Graslin.  Jean  Audubon  named  this  street  as  his 
place  of  residence  in  179-2,  when  he  was  living  in  a  house  belonging 
to  Citizen  Carricoule.  He  made  his  home  also  at  No.  39,  rue  Rubens,  a 
short  street,  with  many  of  its  houses  still  intact,  in  the  same  quarter;  this 
was  rented  of  Fran9oise  Mocquard  for  five  years,  beginning  June  24,  1799 
(le  6  Messidor,  an  7),  at  four  hundred  francs  per  annum.  He  also  dwelt 


58        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

story  proceeds  we  shall  see  that  she  was  a  most  kind, 
if  over-indulgent,  foster  mother,  and  became  excessively 
proud  of  her  handsome  boy.  "The  first  of  my  recol- 
lective  powers,"  said  the  naturalist  when  writing  of  him- 
self in  1835,8  "placed  me  in  the  central  portion  of  the 
city  of  Nantes  .  .  .  where  I  still  recollect  particularly 
that  I  was  much  cherished  by  my  dear  stepmother  .  .  . 
and  that  I  was  constantly  attended  by  one  or  two  black 
servants,  who  had  followed  my  father  to  New  Orleans 
and  afterwards  to  Nantes." 

Jean  Audubon,  who  spent  a  good  part  of  his  life  at 
sea  and  in  a  country  almost  totally  devoid  of  morals, 
must  be  considered  as  the  product  of  his  time.  He  was 
better,  no  doubt,  than  many  who  made  greater  profes- 
sions, better  certainly  than  a  Rousseau,  who  gave  excel- 
lent advice  to  parents  upon  the  proper  methods  of 
rearing  their  children  but  sent  his  own  offspring  to 
orphan  asylums.  As  most  men  have  their  faults,  said 
the  son,  the  father  "had  one  that  was  common  to  many 
individuals,  and  that  never  left  him  until  sobered  by  a 
long  life";  but,  he  added,  "as  a  father,  I  never  com- 
plained of  him ;  his  generosity  was  often  too  great,  and 
his  good  qualities  won  him  many  desirable  friends." 
Whatever  his  faults,  Jean  Audubon  was  just,  generous 
and  possessed  of  a  kind  heart.  He  was  in  reality  a  truer 
father  than  many  who  give  their  children  their  name 
but  deny  them  sympathy  and  a  wise  oversight.  Jean 


at  various  times  at  No.  5,  rue  de  Gigant,  and  in  the  rue  des  Cannes, 
where  his  wife  possessed  a  house,  as  well  as  in  the  rue  des  Fontenelles 
and  the  rue  Saint-Leonard.  Very  likely  "La  Gerbetiere"  at  Coueron  was 
occupied  intermittently,  especially  in  summer,  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
Revolution  and  his  reverses  in  fortune;  even  after  his  retirement  there  in 
1801,  he  still  kept  a  lodging  (pied-a-terre)  at  Nantes,  where,  as  it  chanced, 
he  died,  though  it  was  not  his  usual  stopping-place.  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  86. 
8  See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  His  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86), 
VOL  i,  p.  8. 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  59 

Audubon  not  only  cherished  the  two  children  but  made 
them  his  heirs.  On  March  7,  1793,  Fougere  at  the  age 
of  eight  and  Muguet  at  six  were  legalized  by  a  regular 
act  of  adoption  in  the  presence  of  witnesses  at  Nantes 
as  the  children  of  Jean  and  Anne  Moynet  Audubon. 
This  step  was  taken  at  the  very  moment  when  the 
storm  had  burst  over  La  Vendee,  when  the  fate  of 
Nantes  was  trembling  in  the  balance  and  the  life  of  her 
citizens  was  most  insecure.  The  act  of  adoption  reads :  9 

Extract  from  the  registers  of  births  of  tJie  sections  of  La  Halle 
and  Jean  Jacques  of  the  commune  of  Nantes,  department 
of  the  Loire  inferieure,  on  the  seventh  of  March,  1749,  the 
second  year  of  the  Republic,  one  and  indivisible,  at  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Before  us,  Joseph  Theulier,  public  officer,  elected  to  deter- 
mine the  public  status  of  citizens,  have  appeared  in  the  town 
hall,  Jean  Audubon,  commanding  the  war  sloop  Cerberus,  ves- 
sel of  the  Republic,  aged  forty-nine  years,  native  of  Les  Sables 
d'Olonne,  department  of  La  Vendee,  and  Anne  Moinet  his  wife, 
aged  fifty-eight  years,  native  of  the  former  parish  of  Saint- 
Leonard,  of  this  commune,  who,  assisted  by  Rene  Toussaint 
Julien  Beuscher,  manufacturer,  aged  twenty-five  years,  living 
in  the  section  of  La  Halle,  Rubens  Street,  and  by  Julien  Pierre 
Beuscher,  marine  surgeon,  aged  twenty-four  years,  living  in 
the  section  of  La  Fraternite,  Marchix  Street,  and  employed 
steadily  in  the  said  war  sloop  Cerberus,  have  declared  before  me 
that  they  do  adopt  and  recognize  from  this  moment  as  their 
lawful  children,  to  wit : 

A  male  child  named  Fougere,  born  since  their  marriage,  which 
took  place  on  the  twenty-fourth  of  August,  1772,  in  the  com- 
mune of  Paimboeuf,  in  this  department,  to  him,  Jean  Audubon, 
and  a  woman  living  in  America,  who  has  been  dead  about  eight 
years,  and  a  female  child,  named  Muguet,  born  also  since  the 

"For    the   original    text    of   this    act,   here    given    in    translation,   see 
Appendix  I,  Document  No.  2. 


CO         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

marriage  aforesaid,  to  him  and  another  woman  living  in  Amer- 
ica, named  Catharine  Bouffard,  of  whose  fate  he  is  ignorant. 
The  two  children  being  present,  the  first  aged  nine  years, 
that  will  expire  on  the  22d  of  next  April,  the  second  aged 
seven  years,  that  will  also  expire  on  the  26th  of  April  next,  and 
both  having  been  born  in  America,  according  to  this  declara- 
tion that  the  witnesses  above  mentioned  have  signified  as  true, 
I  have  drawn  up  the  present  act,  which  the  natural  father  and 
the  mother  by  adoption,  as  well  as  their  witnesses  have  signed, 
together  with  myself  in  this  said  day  and  year. 

It  will  be  noticed  that  in  this  legally  attested  docu- 
ment, Bouffard,  the  true  name  of  Muguet's  mother,  is 
given,  while  the  name  of  the  mother  of  Audubon  is  sup- 
pressed. It  might  therefore  be  inferred  that  the  name 
Rabin,  which  appears  later,  was  assumed,  but  as  already 
remarked,  such  evidence  is  not  conclusive. 

Fougere,  who  was  also  called  Jean  Rabin,  was  bap- 
tized on  October  23,  1800,  by  a  priest  of  the  church  of 
Saint-Similien  at  Nantes.  The  archives  of  this  church 
for  the  period  in  question  have  disappeared,  but  Jean 
Audubon's  copy  of  the  record  has  survived,  and  reads 
as  follows:10 

THE  ACT  OF  BAPTISM  OF  JEAN  AUDUBON-RABIN 
October  23,  1800 

We,  the  undersigned,  certify  to  have  baptized  on  this  day 
Jean  Jacques  Fougere  Audubon,  adoptive  son  of  Jean  Audu- 

10  Research  at  Nantes  in  1915  revealed  that  the  baptismal  records  of 
the  parish  of  Saint-Similien  were  wanting  for  the  period  from  1792  to 
1803,  so  it  is  probable  that  they  were  destroyed  in  the  Revolution.  The 
municipal  archives  of  Nantes  possess  a  book  of  baptismal  records  of  the 
city  without  distinction  of  parishes,  but  this  shows  the  names  of  neither 
"Fougere,"  "Rabin,"  nor  "Audubon,"  for  the  year  in  question. 

The  Abbe  Tardiveau  was  un  pr&tre  assermente,  or  one  of  those  priests 
who  had  sworn  in  1790  to  recognize  the  civil  constitution  of  the  clergy. 

For  copy  of  the  act  of  baptism  in  the  French  original,  see  Appendix 
I,  Document  No.  3.  It  is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  heading  as 
given  in  my  copy  of  this  act  was  in  the  original  or  not. 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  61 

bon,  lieutenant  of  a  frigate  of  the  Republic,  and  of  Anne  Moinet, 
his  legitimate  wife,  who  being  present  bear  witness  that  the 
adoption  of  the  said  Fougere,  made  by  (them,  is  in  accordance 
with  the  present  act. 

[Signed]   TARDIVEAU,  priest  of  Saint- 
Similien,  of  the  town  of  Nantes. 

The  act  of  adoption  was  drawn  at  a  time  when  Cap- 
tain Audubon  could  have  had  little  leisure  to  consult 
records  had  he  been  disposed  to  do  so,  but  the  dates 
of  birth  which  he  then  gave  for  these  two  children  were 
correct  both  as  to  the  year  and  month.  Fougere,  how- 
ever, was  born  on  the  twenty-sixth,  instead  of  the  twen- 
ty-second of  April,  and  Muguet,  on  the  twenty-ninth, 
instead  of  the  twenty-sixth,  of  that  month.  Audubon's 
mother's  name  is  indicated  in  numerous  legal  documents 
of  later  date,  and,  as  will  appear,  in  every  instance  her 
son's  identity  is  clearly  established. 

Young  Audubon,  who  disliked  the  names  of  Fougere 
and  Rabin,  and  naturally  wished  to  be  rid  of  their  early 
associations,  adopted  the  fanciful  name  of  "La  For- 
est," J1  but  used  it  only  sporadically  and  for  a  short  time. 
Some  of  his  drawings  of  birds  made  at  Nantes  or  Coue- 
ron  as  early  as  1805,  and  in  New  York  in  1806  and  1807, 
and  possibly  others  of  slightly  later  date,  are  signed 
"J.  L.  F.  A.,"  or  "J.  J.  L.  Audubon."  12 

Jean  Audubon  and  his  wife  are  said  to  have  settled 


"An  English  writer  once  gave  the  name  of  Audubon's  mother  as 
Mile.  La  Foret. 

13  Audubon's  signature  underwent  frequent  variations  during  the  first 
twenty-five  years  of  his  life,  but  after  1820  he  almost  invariably  signed 
himself  "John  J.,"  or  "J.  J.  Audubon."  In  the  record  of  the  civil 
marriage  of  his  sister,  at  Coueron  in  1805,  his  name  appears  as  "J.  J.  L. 
Audubon;"  in  the  "Articles  of  Association"  with  Ferdinand  Rozier,  signed 
at  Nantes  in  1806,  it  is  "Jean  Audubon,"  and  in  the  release  given  on  the 
dissolution  of  this  partnership,  at  Ste.  Genevieve,  in  1811,  the  English 
form,  "John  Audubon,"  appears. 


62         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

some  property  upon  "Jean  Rabin,  Creole  de  Saint  Do- 
mingue"  which  he  refused  to  accept,  saying,  "my  own 
name  I  have  never  been  permitted  even  to  speak ;  accord 
me  that  of  Audubon,  which  I  revere,  as  I  have  cause 
to  do."  13  The  reference  in  this  instance  was,  I  believe,  to 
the  final  will  of  Lieutenant  Audubon,14  according  to 
which  his  property,  after  being  held  in  usufruct  by  his 
wife  during  her  lifetime,  was  to  be  equally  divided  be- 
tween their  two  adopted  children.  In  his  first  will  the 
son  was  referred  to  as  "Jean  Audubon,"  but  in  the  sec- 
ond and  last  document,  executed  in  1816,  two  years  be- 
fore the  testator's  death,  he  appears  as  "Jean  Rabin." 
Madame  Audubon  drew  four  wills;  in  the  first,  dated 
December  4,  1814,  her  adopted  son  is  called  "Jean  Au- 
dubon"; in  the  next,  of  1816,  he  is  "Jean  Rabin,  Creole 
de  Saint-Domingue"  while  in  a  draft  written  December 
26,  1819,  he  is  styled  simply  "Jean  Rabin";  finally,  in 
her  fourth  and  last  testament  of  July  16, 1821,  the  word- 
ing is  "Jean  Audubon,  called  'Jean  Rabin.' '  It  is 
thus  very  plain  that  Audubon's  foster  parents  consid- 
ered it  advisable  to  have  his  identity  clearly  set  forth 
in  legal  documents.  In  one  of  his  autobiographical 
sketches  Audubon  remarked  that  his  own  mother  was 
said  to  have  been  as  wealthy  as  she  was  beautiful,  and 
if  this  were  true,  such  caution  might  be  explained  and 
a  key  found  to  certain  other  enigmatical  conditions 
which  seemed  to  hedge  his  early  life.  But  to  such  pos- 
sibilities it  will  be  necessary  to  revert  at  a  later  point  of 
our  story.15 

This  dual  personality  was  set  forth  by  the  naturalist 
himself,  but  in  a  more  curious  form,  in  a  power  of  attor- 

13  This  statement  was  made  to  me  by  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon  in  1914. 
"For   full  text   of   the   six  wills   drawn   at   different   times   by  Jean 
Audubon  and  his  wife  see  Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  13-18. 
15  See  Chapter  XVII. 


<^0 


AUDUBOX'S  SIOXATUHE  AT  VARIOUS  PERIODS  FROM   1805  TO  1847. 

The  first,  fourth  and  sixth  are  from  early  drawings;  the  second  from  Audu- 
bon  and  Rozier's  "Articles  of  Association";  the  fifth  from  a  release 
given  to  Rozier;  and  the  remainder  from  letters. 

63 


64         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ney16  executed  at  Henderson,  Kentucky,  on  July  26, 
1817,  in  favor  of  his  brother-in-law,  Gabriel  Loyen  du 
Puigaudeau.  This  measure  was  taken  more  than  a  year 
after  Audubon's  father  had  drawn  up  his  last  will,  in 
which  the  son  was  referred  to  as  "Jean  Rabin,"  and  was 
evidently  designed  to  facilitate  any  settlement  of  this 
will  which  events  in  France  might  render  necessary. 
The  naturalist  was  then  engaged  in  his  famous  but  dis- 
astrous financial  enterprises  on  the  Ohio  River,17  but 
whether  any  intimation  had  come  to  him  of  possible  legal 
troubles,  which  later  actually  ensued  in  France,  cannot 
be  stated. 

"This  unique  document  reads  as  follows: 

"To  all  to  whom  these  presents  may  come:  know  ye  that  I,  John 
Audubon,  having  special  trust  and  confidence  in  my  friend,  G.  Loyen  Du 
Puigaudeau,  of  the  Department  of  Loire  and  [sic]  Inferieure,  and  Parish 
of  Coueron,  near  Nantes,  in  the  kingdom  of  France,  [do  constitute  him] 
my  true  and  lawful  attorney,  and  the  true  and  lawful  attorney  in  fact  of 
Jean  Rabin,  husband  of  Lucy  Bakewell,  of  the  County  of  Henderson 
and  State  of  Kentucky,  in  the  United  States  of  America,  for  us  [?],  the 
said  Jean  Rabin,  and  in  our  name  to  our  use  and  benefit,  to  ask,  demand, 
sue  for,  recover,  and  receive  all  and  every  part  of  the  Real  and  Personal 
Estate,  that  is  to  say  Lands,  Tenements,  Grounds,  Chattels,  and  credits, 
which  I  have,  or  either  of  us,  in  the  Department  of  Loire  and  [sic] 
Inferieure  in  the  kingdom  of  France,  aforesaid,  and  to  make  sale  of  the 
same,  either  at  auction,  or  by  contract  of  the  said  Lands  and  Tenements, 
Goods,  Chattells,  and  Credits,  to  receive  the  money  arising  from  said 
sale,  to  give  any  Receipt,  acquittance,  or  other  discharge  for  the  said 
money  or  any  part  thereof,  if  money  or  specie  shall  be  received,  or  for 
any  property  he  may  receive  in  exchange  or  barter  for  said  Real  and 
personal  Estate,  and  our  said  attorney,  or  the  attorney  of  Jean  Rabin 
aforesaid,  is  hereby  authorized  and  empowered  to  make,  give,  execute,  and 
deliver  any  Deed,  Covenant,  or  transfer  of  said  Real  and  Personal  Estate 
to  the  purchaser  of  all  or  any  part  thereof  for  us,  or  for  the  said 
Jean  Rabin,  in  as  full  and  ample  a  manner  as  he,  the  said  Jean,  could 
do,  was  he  personally  present  in  said  Department,  in  the  Kingdom.  In 
testimony  whereof  the  said  John  Audubon  has  hereunto  set  his  hand  and 
affixed  his  seal  the  Twenty  Sixth  day  of  July,  Anno  Domini  One  thousand 
&  Eight  hundred  and  Seventeen. 

JOHK  J.  AUDUBON  [Seal  within] 

On  the  back  of  the  preceding  is  the  notary's  certificate  that  Jean  Audu- 
bon appeared  before  him;  seal  affixed,  and  dated  July  26,  1817. 

Signed,  "A[MBROZE]  BARBAND, 
Notary  of  Henderson  County,  Kentucky." 

"See  Chapter  XVI. 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  65 

In  reading  the  published  accounts  of  Audubon's 
early  life  many  have  been  puzzled  by  the  absence  of  defi- 
nite dates,  as  well  as  by  the  numerous  contradictions  in 
which  they  abound.  It  is  needless  to  burden  this  nar- 
rative with  a  tedious  reference  to  all  these  errors  or  to 
attempt  to  trace  their  origin,  which  no  doubt  had  many 
sources,  but  since  we  have  given  the  first  true  account 
of  the  naturalist's  birth,  we  cannot  pass  these  matters 
without  a  word  of  comment.  The  situation  is  somewhat 
involved,  since  we  should  possibly  differentiate  between 
what  Audubon  at  different  times  believed  to  be  true,  and 
what  he  wished  to  make  known  to  his  family  or  to  the 
public;  possibly  also  we  should  discriminate  between 
what  he  actually  published  over  his  own  signature  dur- 
ing his  lifetime  and  the  material  which  has  appeared 
since  his  death,  even  though  originally  written  by  his 
own  hand. 

The  first  definite  date  which  Audubon  ever  gave  con- 
cerning his  own  life  was  that  of  his  marriage  in  1808, 
when  he  was  twenty-three  years  of  age,  and  all  that 
he  ever  published  of  a  biographical  nature  is  to  be  found 
in  his  Ornithological  Biography.18  In  the  introduction 
to  this  work  he  simply  said  that  he  had  "received  light 
and  life  in  the  New  World,"  and  further  that  he  returned 
to  America  from  France,  whither  he  had  gone  to  receive 
the  rudiments  of  his  education,  at  the  age  of  seventeen. 
Since  Audubon's  first  return  to  America  was  in  the 
autumn  of  1803,  when  he  was  actually  about  eighteen 
and  one-half  years  old,  this  statement  is  not  so  wide  of 
the  mark  as  to  imply  that  the  date  of  his  birth  was  not 
then  well  understood.  Moreover,  the  record  of  his  adop- 
tion, which  was  certified  to  at  the  time  of  his  baptism  in 
1800,  was  carefully  preserved  among  the  family  docu- 

38  Vol.  i,  p.  v;  see  Bibliography,  No.  2. 


66        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ments,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  knowledge 
of  his  age  was  ever  withheld  from  him.  Nevertheless, 
Audubon  was  inclined  to  overestimate  his  years,  a  char- 
acteristic rare  in  these  days;  when  at  Oxford  in  1828 
he  was  asked  for  his  autograph,  and  was  begged  to  in- 
scribe also  the  date  of  his  birth;  "that,"  he  said  in  record- 
ing the  incident,  "I  could  not  do,  except  approximately," 
and  his  hostess  was  greatly  amused  that  he  should  not 
know. 

While  going  down  the  Ohio  River  in  1820,  bound  for 
New  Orleans,  Audubon  took  advantage  of  a  rainy  day 
to  write  in  his  journal  something  about  himself  that  he 
thought  his  children  at  some  future  time  might  desire 
to  know.  This  brief  record  may  or  may  not  have  been 
at  hand  when  in  1835  he  wrote  the  more  extended  ver- 
sion that  finally  saw  the  light  in  1893.19  Since  the  manu- 
script of  the  later  sketch  was  presumably  in  possession 
of  Mrs.  Audubon  when  the  biography  of  her  husband 
was  prepared  in  New  York  about  the  year  1866,  that 
account  in  its  various  versions  has  furnished  biograph- 
ers with  practically  all  of  the  available  material,  not 
purely  conjectural,  concerning  the  naturalist's  early  life. 
Such  additions  as  were  made  subsequently  have  proved 
to  be  very  inaccurate. 

In  the  first  of  these  sketches,  which,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
is  more  in  strict  accord  with  facts,  Audubon  said  nothing 
of  his  birth,  and  of  his  mother  remarked  only  that  he 
had  been  told  that  she  v/as  "an  extraordinary  beauti- 
ful woman,"  who  died  shortly  after  he  was  born.  His 
father,  he  added,  saw  his  wealth  torn  from  him,  until 
there  was  left  barely  enough  to  educate  his  two  chil- 
dren, all  that  remained  of  the  five,  his  three  elder  broth- 

19  Published  by  Maria  R.  Audubon  (Bibl.  No.  78)  in  Scribner's 
Magazine,  vol.  xiii  (1893). 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  67 

ers20  having  been  "killed  in  the  wars."  He  then  believed, 
as  he  said,  that  his  first  journey  to  France  was  made 
when  he  was  two  years  old. 

The  later  and  fuller  biography,  referred  to  above  as 
written  in  1835  and  published  in  1893,  begins  with  these 
words  :21 

The  precise  period  of  my  birth  is  yet  an  enigma  to  me, 
and  I  can  only  say  what  I  have  often  heard  my  father  repeat 
to  me  on  this  subject,  which  is  as  follows:  It  seems  that  my 
father  had  large  properties  in  Santo  Domingo,  and  was  in  the 
habit  of  visiting  frequently  that  portion  of  our  Southern  States 
called,  and  known  by  the  name  of,  Louisiana,  then  owned  by 
the  French  Government. 

During  one  of  these  excursions  he  married  a  lady  of  Spanish 
extraction,  whom  I  have  been  led  to  understand  was  as  beauti- 
ful as  she  was  wealthy,  and  otherwise  attractive,  and  who  bore 
my  father  three  sons  and  a  daughter, — I  being  the  youngest  of 
the  sons  and  the  only  one  who  survived  extreme  youth.  My 
mother,  soon  after  my  birth,  accompanied  my  father  to  the 
estate  [sic\  of  Aux  Cayes,22  on  the  island  of  Santo  Domingo, 
and  she  was  one  of  the  victims  during  the  ever-to-be-lamented 
period  of  the  negro  insurrection  of  that  island. 

My  father,  through  the  intervention  of  some  faithful  ser- 
vants, escaped  from  Aux  Cayes  with  a  good  portion  of  his 
plate  and  money,  and  with  me  and  these  humble  friends  reached 
New  Orleans  in  safety.  From  this  place  he  took  me  to  France, 
where  having  married  the  only  mother  I  have  ever  known,  he 
left  me  under  her  charge  and  returned  to  the  United  States  in 
the  employ  of  the  French  Government,  acting  as  an  officer 
under  Admiral  Rochambeau.  Shortly  afterward,  however,  he 

"Whether  Jean  Audubon  had  other  sons  born  in  Santo  Domingo  is 
not  recorded,  and  this  reference  of  the  naturalist,  which  was  repeated  in 
his  later  sketch,  cannot  be  verified. 

"See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  His  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86), 
vol.  i,  p.  7. 

83  See  Note  2,  Vol.  I,  p.  38. 


68        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

landed  in  the  United  States  and  became  attached  to  the  army 
under  La  Fayette. 

The  true  history  of  Jean  Audubon's  commercial, 
naval,  and  civic  career  is  given  in  the  preceding  and  fol- 
lowing chapters. 

The  naturalist,  in  his  letters  and  journals,  made  fre- 
quent allusions  to  his  age,  but,  as  his  granddaughter  re- 
marked, with  one  exception,  no  two  agree;  hence,  his 
granddaughter  concluded  that  he  might  "have  been  born 
anywhere  from  1772  to  1783."  In  the  face  of  such 
uncertainty  she  adopted  the  traditional  date  of  May  5, 
1780,  adding  that  the  true  one  was  no  doubt  earlier. 
Audubon  was  thus  five  years  younger  than  his  biograph- 
ers supposed,  and  twenty-one  years  were  added  to  the 
age  of  his  father,  who  actually  lived  to  be  only  seventy- 
four  years  old,  while  his  son  died  in  his  sixty-seventh 
year. 

Wherever  there  is  mystery  there  tradition  is  certain 
to  raise  its  head,  and  though  the  naturalist  carried  his 
"enigma"  to  the  grave,  others,  building  upon  his  story, 
have  fixed  upon  the  very  house  in  Louisiana  in  which 
he  is  said  to  have  been  born.  Indeed,  advocates  of 
more  than  one  house  in  that  state  as  the  probable  scene 
of  Audubon's  nativity  have  arisen  in  recent  times.  We 
are  obliged,  therefore,  to  examine  somewhat  farther  the 
now  universally  received  but  thoroughly  erroneous  idea 
that  John  James  Audubon  was  a  native  of  Louisiana 
at  a  time  when  that  Commonwealth  was  part  of  a  prov- 
ince of  France. 

Upholding  a  tradition  of  rather  recent  growth,  Au- 
dubon's granddaughter  has  expressed  the  belief  that  the 
naturalist  was  born  in  a  house  belonging  to  the  famous 
Philippe  de  Marigny  and  known  as  "Fontainebleau." 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  69 

This  was  a  sugar  plantation  on  the  north  side  of  Lake 
Ponchartrain,  three  miles  east  of  what  is  now  the  vil- 
lage of  Mandeville  and  twenty-five  miles  due  north  of 
New  Orleans. 

Pierre  Enguerrand  Philippe  de  Mandeville,  Ecuyer 
Sieur  de  Marigny,23  at  one  time  owner  of  vast  estates  in 
and  about  New  Orleans,  was  born  in  that  city  in  1750, 
and  served  as  its  alcade  or  mayor  for  two  years.  A 
lavish  dispenser  of  hospitality,  in  1798  he  entertained 
in  great  state  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  later  known  as 
Louis  Philippe  of  France,  together  with  his  two  broth- 
ers who  accompanied  him.  He  died  at  New  Orleans, 
leaving  five  sons,  of  whom  the  third,  Bernard  Marigny, 
later  became  the  owner  of  "Fontainebleau,"  which  it 
has  been  mistakenly  assumed  was  inherited  from  his 
father.  At  the  time  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans'  visit  just 
mentioned  Jean  Audubon  had  been  out  of  the  country 
nine  years;  there  is  no  evidence  of  his  ever  having 
owned  property  at  New  Orleans,  or  ever  having  sus- 
tained any  relations  with  the  Marigny  family. 

Before  following  the  Marigny  myth  further,  it  will 
be  interesting  to  notice  a  late  echo  of  the  "Fontaine- 
bleau" story.  In  1910  the  Reverend  Gordon  Bakewell, 
then  in  his  eighty-ninth  year,  gave  some  interesting  rem- 
iniscences of  Audubon,  and  spoke  very  definitely  con- 
cerning both  the  time  and  place  of  his  birth.  Dr.  Bake- 
well  was  a  nephew  of  Mrs.  Audubon,  and  as  a  youth,  in 
1834,  had  passed  some  time  at  her  home  in  London. 
John  W.  Audubon,  with  his  father's  assistance,  painted 
at  that  time  a  portrait  of  young  Bakewell,  who  at  a 

*See  J.  W.  Crozart,  "Bibliographical  and  Genealogical  Notes  Con- 
cerning the  Family  of  Philippe  de  Mandeville,  Ecuyer  Sieur  de  Marigny, 
1709-1800,"  Louisiana  Historical  Society  Publications,  vol.  v  (New  Orleans, 
1911).  The  portrait  referred  to  below  now  hangs  in  the  H.  Sophie  New- 
comb  Memorial  College,  New  Orleans. 


70        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

later  day  was  welcomed  in  their  home  on  the  Hudson. 
Dr.  Bakewell's  contribution  was  as  follows : 24 

The  uncertainty  as  to  the  place  of  Audubon's  birth  has  been 
put  to  rest  by  the  testimony  of  an  eye  witness  in  the  person 
of  old  Mandeville  Marigny  now  dead  some  years.  His  re- 
peated statement  to  me  was,  that  on  his  plantation  at  Mande- 
ville, Louisiana,  on  Lake  Ponchartrain,  Audubon's  mother  was 
his  guest ;  and  while  there  gave  birth  to  John  James  Audubon. 
Marigny  was  present  at  the  time,  and  from  his  own  lips,  I  have, 
as  already  said,  repeatedly  heard  him  assert  the  above  fact. 
He  was  ever  proud  to  bear  this  testimony  of  his  protection 
given  to  Audubon's  mother,  and  his  ability  to  bear  witness  as 
to  the  place  of  Audubon's  birth,  thus  establishing  the  fact  that 
he  was  a  Louisianian  by  birth. 

We  do  not  doubt  the  candor  and  sincerity  of  the 
excellent  Dr.  Bakewell,  but  are  bound  to  say  that  the 
incidents  as  related  above  betray  a  striking  lapse  of 
memory  and  an  even  greater  misunderstanding  of  re- 
corded facts.  Singularly  a  footnote  to  the  paragraph 
quoted  shows  that  the  Marigny  to  whom  he  refers  was, 
as  must  have  been  the  case,  Bernard  Mandeville  de  Ma- 
rigny, who  was  born  in  1785,  the  same  year  as  the  nat- 
uralist. Since  both  were  in  the  cradle  at  the  same  time, 
he  is  hardly  available  as  a  witness.  Moreover,  the  official 
records  of  the  United  States  Government  prove  that 
the  estate  called  "Fontainebleau"  was  not  in  possession 
of  the  Marigny  family  at  the  time  of  Audubon's  birth. 
The  land  in  question  was  granted  to  a  Creole  named 
Antonio  Bonnabel,  on  January  25,  1799,  by  Manuel 
Goyon  de  Lemore,  Governor-General  of  the  Province  of 
Louisiana  and  West  Florida.  Bonnabel  sold  his  tract 

34  Gordon  Bakewell   (Bibl.  No.  90),  ibid.,  p.  31. 


BIRTH  AND  PARENTAGE  71 

to  Bernard  Marigny  in  1800,  and  Congress  confirmed 
his  title  to  it  by  a  special  act  in  1836.25 

Bernard  Marigny  served  in  the  French  army  towards 
the  close  of  the  Napoleonic  period,  and  his  return  to  the 
United  States  from  France,  about  1818,  is  said  to  have 
been  hastened  by  a  duel  which  he  fought  with  one  of 
his  superior  officers.  On  his  return  he  named  Bonna- 
bel's  old  tract  on  Lake  Ponchartrain  "Fontainebleau," 
in  remembrance  of  the  place  where  his  regiment  had 
been  assigned  for  duty  in  France,  and  eventually  built 
upon  the  estate  a  sawmill  and  a  sugar-house,  and  planted 
sugar  cane,  living  meanwhile  on  another  plantation  two 
and  one-half  miles  away.  The  latter  estate  was  allotted 
by  him  in  1832,  when  he  gave  it  the  name  of  Mandeville; 
the  settlement  thus  started  has  since  grown  to  a  village 
of  some  1,500  people.  Here  a  summer  house  which  be- 
longed to  Bernard's  father  still  exists,  although  in  al- 
tered form;  it  has  been  raised  to  accommodate  a  lower 
story,  and  is  now  known  as  the  "Casino."  According  to 
those  who  have  most  carefully  investigated  existing  rec- 
ords, this  is  the  only  house  in  Mandeville  which  belonged 
to  the  elder  Marigny  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak. 

35  See  Laws  of  the  United  States,  Treaties,  Regulations,  and  Other 
Documents  Respecting  the  Public  Lands,  vol.  i,  p.  301  (Washington,  1836). 
In  Number  756,  entitled  "An  Act  for  the  Relief  of  Bernard  Marigny,  of 
the  State  of  Louisiana,"  Marigny  is  mentioned  as  assignee  of  Antonio 
Bonnabel,  and  his  claim,  which  was  confirmed,  is  described  as  follows:  a 
tract  of  land  of  4,020  superficial  arpents,  in  the  State  of  Louisiana,  parish 
of  St.  Tammany,  "bounded  on  the  southwest  by  Lake  Ponchartrain,  and 
on  the  northwest  by  lands  formerly  owned  by  the  heirs  of  Lewis  Davis." 

I  am  informed  by  Mr.  Caspar  Cusachs,  president  of  the  Historical 
Society  of  Louisiana,  who  has  carefully  investigated  the  titles  of  this 
property  and  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  much  information  concerning 
it  and  its  owners,  that  the  tract  described  above  included  the  estate  of 
"Fontainebleau."  Marigny's  claim  included  also  a  smaller  tract  of  774 
arpents  in  the  same  parish.  This  land  was  bounded  on  the  southwest 
by  Lake  Ponchartrain,  on  the  north  by  Castin  Bayou,  and  on  the  south 
by  the  tract  acquired  from  Bonnabel;  it  was  granted  to  the  heirs  of 
Lewis  Davis  in  1777,  and  certain  of  them  filed  a  claim  for  it  in  1812. 


72        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Bernard  Marigny  was  one  of  those  who  befriended 
Audubon  when  he  was  in  desperate  straits  at  New  Or- 
leans in  1821,  by  advancing  him  money  in  return  for 
portraits  or  drawings  of  birds.  He  died  in  that  city  in 
1868,  when  in  his  eighty-third  year,  a  poor  and  honest 
man. 


CHAPTER  V 

LIEUTENANT  AUDUBON  AS  REVOLUTIONIST 

Background  of  Audubon's  youth — Nantes  in  Revolution — Revolt  in  La 
Vendee — Siege  of  Nantes — Reign  of  terror  under  Carrier — Plague  rob- 
bing the  guillotine — Flight  of  the  population — Execution  of  Charette — 
The  Chouan  raid — Citizen  Audubon's  service — He  reenters  the  navy  and 
takes  a  prize  from  the  English — His  subsequent  naval  career — His 
losses  in  Santo  Domingo — His  service  and  rank — Retires  on  a  pension — 
His  death — His  character  and  appearance. 

The  ancient  city  of  Nantes,  long  famed  for  the  beauty 
of  its  situation  on  the  banks  of  a  noble  river,  within 
easy  reach  of  the  sea,  as  well  as  for  its  importance  in 
the  arts  of  war  and  peace,  numbered  at  the  time  of  the 
Revolution  70,000  souls.  The  modern  visitor  to  this 
favored  spot  will  find  quiet  and  orderly  streets  adorned 
with  monumental  statues  (one  of  these  representing 
Guepin,  the  revered  historian  of  the  city) ,  the  old  build- 
ings nearly  all  replaced  by  better,  the  Loire  spanned  by 
handsome  bridges,  and  the  ancient  bounds  of  the  town 
extended  until  it  has  become  the  sixth  city  of  the  Re- 
public. Since  Nantes  formed  a  somber  background  to 
Audubon's  youth,  we  shall  follow  in  brief  some  of  the 
ordeals  through  which  his  family,  in  common  with  thou- 
sands of  other  Nantais,  were  destined  to  pass  during 
those  eventful  years  which  witnessed  the  close  of  the 
eighteenth  century  in  France. 

When  Captain  Audubon  reached  Nantes  presumably 
not  far  from  the  beginning  of  1790,  he  found  the  city 
in  a  state  of  the  greatest  turmoil  and  agitation.  The 

73 


74        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

commons,  or  third  estate,  included  hundreds  of  its  rich 
and  influential  citizens,  and  their  demands  for  a  fair 
hearing  and  a  representation  equal  to  that  of  the  other 
orders  had  then  passed  the  stage  of  open  revolt,  for  they 
had  planted  their  "liberty  tree"  and  were  sworn  to  de- 
fend it.  In  August  of  1789  a  permanent  Committee 
of  Public  Safety- had  been  constituted  at  Nantes,  and 
by  the  end  of  that  month  1,200  had  volunteered  for  serv- 
ice in  the  National  Guard.  There  were  many  loyalists 
in  the  city  but  they  could  not  crush  the  ardent  spirit 
of  this  revolt,  and  when  in  September  money  was  needed 
to  equip  the  revolutionary  soldiery,  young  school  chil- 
dren raised  large  sums  for  the  popular  cause.  Jean 
Audubon  immediately  cast  his  lot  with  the  revolution- 
ists and  joined  the  National  Guard,  but  how  much  serv- 
ice he  saw  in  the  field  cannot  now  be  determined;  it  is 
known,  however,  that  he  was  with  these  troops  in  the 
spring  of  1792.1 

In  March,  1793,  the  loyalists  of  La  Vendee  rose  to 
arms,  and  marching  on  Nantes  under  the  able  leadership 
of  Charette,  threatened  to  put  its  garrison  to  the  sword 
if  it  were  not  surrendered  within  six  hours.  The  Na- 
tional Guard  met  these  invaders  outside  the  walls  and 
left  the  citizens  to  shift  for  themselves.  Thus  thrown 
upon  their  own  resources,  the  Nantais  showed  that  they 
could  help  themselves.  They  requisitioned  and  used  for 
defense  everything  at  hand;  they  exhumed  the  leaden 
coffins  in  their  grand  cathedral  and  appropriated  water- 
spouts for  ammunition,  while  their  church  bells  were 
molded  into  cannon.  Though  held  in  check,  the  Ven- 
deans  laid  siege  to  the  city,  and  but  for  the  resolution 
of  its  mayor,  Baco,  Nantes  would  probably  have  fallen 
—in  which  event  Audubon  would  have  had  a  different 

aOne  period  of  this  service  bears  date  of  May  31. 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    75 

history  and  would  probably  never  have  become  a  pio- 
neer naturalist  in  America.  Baco,  disregarding  the 
advice  of  his  military  chiefs,  immediately  placarded  the 
walls  of  Nantes  decreeing  death  to  any  who  should 
suggest  capitulation,  and  called  all  the  inhabitants  to 
arms,  sparing  neither  woman  nor  child.  The  Vendeans 
had  met  their  match,  for  they  were  dealing  with  many 
of  their  own  blood,  but  though  the  siege  began  in  early 
March,  they  were  not  effectually  dispersed  until  the  end 
of  June,  and  then  only  after  much  bloodshed  without 
the  walls.  When  the  immediate  crisis  had  passed,  the 
Constitution  of  the  Republic  was  unanimously  accepted 
by  the  eighteen  sections  of  Nantes,  on  the  twenty-first 
day  of  July,  1792. 

A  few  months  later  in  that  fateful  year  a  more  ter- 
rible calamity  befell  the  city,  when  the  reign  of  terror 
under  the  notorious  ultra-revolutionist,  Jean  B.  Carrier, 
began.  Carrier  reached  Nantes  on  October  8  and  at 
once  proposed  to  exterminate  both  the  Vendean  royal- 
ists and  their  Nantais  sympathizers.  He  reorganized 
the  entire  administration  to  suit  his  purposes,  and  to 
carry  out  his  plans  recruited  from  the  lowest  classes  a 
revolutionary  army  to  spy  upon,  denounce  and  arrest 
private  citizens,  many  of  whom  were  sent  to  Paris  for 
trial  when  not  secretly  dispatched.  The  whole  district 
was  soon  paralyzed  by  the  barbarity  of  the  crimes  then 
committed,  and  the  unhappy  Vendeans  were  dragged  to 
Nantes,  to  be  shot,  guillotined  or  drowned,  in  such  num- 
bers that  the  city  was  unable  to  bury  its  dead  or  the 
river  to  discharge  them  to  the  sea.  Thus  perished  thou- 
sands, uncounted  if  not  unknown,  and  the  pestilence  of 
typhoid  fever  that  immediately  followed  claimed  an- 
other heavy  toll  regardless  of  political  sympathies. 
While  these  dire  scenes  were  being  enacted,  Jean  Jacques 


76         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Fougere  Audubon,  then  a  lad  of  eight  years,  was  living 
in  the  heart  of  Nantes,  and  his  father  was  one  of  its 
leading  revolutionists.  An  aunt  of  the  future  orni- 
thologist, according  to  his  account,  who  was  one  of  these 
wretched  victims  of  revolutionary  fury,  was  dragged 
through  the  streets  of  Nantes  before  his  eyes,  but  appar- 
ently she  did  not  actually  meet  her  death  at  that  time.2 

That  Jean  Audubon  moved  his  family  out  of  Nantes 
during  the  revolutionary  crisis  is  possible,  and  Coueron 
would  have  been  available  as  a  place  of  refuge.  Many 
Nantais  are  known  to  have  fled  to  Lorient  on  the  coast 
of  Brittany,  where  they  found  in  the  heroic  youth  Jul- 
ien  the  ardent  and  fearless  patriot  who  was  destined 
to  become  the  real  savior  of  their  stricken  city.  Young 
Julien  denounced  Carrier  in  his  letters  to  Robespierre, 
and  when  one  of  these  was  intercepted,  defied  him  in 
person.  When  his  stirring  appeals  finally  reached  the 
Tribunal  at  Paris,  its  misnamed  representative  was  re- 
called, and  left  Nantes  under  cover  of  night  on  Febru- 
ary 14,  1794.  During  his  mad  reign  of  four  months, 
Carrier  had  gone  far  towards  carrying  out  his  theory 
of  republican  government,  that  should  begin,  as  he 
openly  avowed,  by  "suppressing"  half  of  the  population 
of  France.  The  records  show  that  nearly  nine  thou- 
sand bodies  were  buried  in  Nantes  in  a  little  over  three 
months,  from  January  15  to  April  24, 1794.  The  plague 
of  fever  no  doubt  accounted  for  many  of  these,  but  the 
wide  reaches  of  the  Loire  never  told  their  full  story. 

Though  the  most  grievous  affliction  of  Nantes  passed 
with  the  recall  of  Carrier,  the  city  had  no  lasting  peace 
until  the  execution  of  the  Vendean  leader,  Charette,  in 
March,  1796;  "Poor  Charette,"  said  Audubon,  writing 
in  his  journal  at  Liverpool,  December  24,  1827,  "whom 

3  See  Note  4,  Vol.  I,  p.  27. 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    77 

I  saw  shot  on  the  place  de  Viarme  at  Nantes."  This 
virtually  ended  the  war  in  the  Vendee,  but  the  Chouans, 
under  their  intrepid  chief,  Dupre,  the  miller,  called 
"Tete-Carree,"  managed  to  furnish  considerable  excite- 
ment, and  raided  Nantes  in  1799.  Dupre's  followers 
stole  in  secretly  at  three  o'clock  on  the  morning  of  Octo- 
ber 19  and  left  before  daylight,  after  liberating  fifteen 
royalists  from  the  prison,  which  seems  to  have  been  their 
chief  purpose.  The  cannon  of  alarm  was  fired  from 
the  Chateau ;  the  tocsin  sounded,  calling  the  city  to  arms ; 
there  was  much  street  fighting,  but  it  was  too  foggy  and 
dark«to  distinguish  friend  from  foe,  and  when  the  Na- 
tional Guard  was  finally  assembled,  the  enemy  had 
vanished.  This  brief  attack  cost  the  city  twenty-one 
deaths  and  wounds  for  twice  the  number,3  but  it  was 
only  a  passing  incident  in  comparison  with  events  that 
had  gone  before.  Thenceforth  the  history  of  the  town  is 
blended  with  that  of  the  nation.4 

We  have  only  slight  indications  of  Jean  Audubon's 
activities  from  the  close  of  1789,  when,  according  to  his 
own  statement,  he  was  in  the  United  States,  to  the  period 
of  his  service  in  the  National  Guard  at  Nantes  in  the 
spring  of  1792 ;  he  was  then  living  in  the  house  of  Citizen 
Carricoule,  rue  de  Crebillon,  and  the  lease  of  his  "Mill 
Grove"  farm,  which  was  renewed  in  October,  1790,  was 
dated  at  Nantes.  We  may  safely  assume  that  he  was 

•The  mayor,  Saget,  at  the  moment  he  was  crossing  the  Place  Egalit6 
(the  Place  Royale  of  today)  received  point-blank  a  ball  in  his  right  thigh 
and  another  in  his  left  leg,  and  lost  both  limbs. 

4  For  the  revolutionary  history  of  Nantes  I  am  chiefly  indebted  to 
M.  A.  Guepin's  excellent  Histoire  de  Nantes,  2d  ed.  (Nantes,  1839);  Hipp. 
Etiennez,  Guide  du  Voyageur  a  Nantes,  et  aux  Environs  (Nantes,  1861); 
A.  Lescadien  et  Aug.  Laurent,  Histoire  de  la  Ville  de  Nantes,  t.2  (Nantes, 
1836);  F.  J.  Verger,  Archives  curieuses  de  la  Ville  de  Nantes  et  des 
Departments  de  I'Ouest,  t.  5  (Nantes,  1837-41);  and  to  a  scholarly  mono- 
graph by  Dugast-Matifeux,  entitled  Carrier  a  Nantes:  Precis  de  la  Conduite 
patriotique  «t  revolutionnaire  des  citoyens  de  Nantes  (Nantes,  1885). 


78         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

engaged  in  revolutionary  business  during  most  of  this 
interval:  his  name  begins  to  appear  in  the  written  rec- 
ords of  Nantes  and  of  the  department  of  the  Lower 
Loire  in  January,  1793,  and  existing  documents5  show 
that  he  was  engaged  as  a  commissioner  and  member  of 
the  Department  and  as  a  member  of  the  Council  of  the 
Navy  until  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  when  he  enlisted  for 
active  service  in  the  navy  of  the  Republic.  Jean  Audu- 
bon  served  also  on  various  republican  committees,  his 
duties  comprising  the  enlistment  of  recruits,  organizing 
the  National  Guard,  soliciting  funds  and  food  supplies 
for  Nantes,  finding  cannon  and  other  military  or  naval 
materials,  posting  proclamations,  administering  the  oath 
of  allegiance,  and  watching  the  movements  of  loyalist 
troops  in  the  district.  We  have  seen  that  the  father 
of  the  naturalist  was  a  game  and  determined  fighter,  and 
there  is  ample  written  testimony  to  prove  that  in  the 
commune  of  Nantes  he  was  regarded  as  an  ardent 
patriot,  who  could  be  relied  upon  to  act  with  tact,  and 
if  necessary  with  force. 

Having  been  appointed  a  Civil  Commissioner  by  the 
Directory  of  the  Department  on  January  17, 1793,  Citi- 
zen Audubon  was  sent  to  Savenay,  a  town  of  some  im- 
portance twenty-five  miles  to  the  northwest  of  Nantes. 
His  instructions  on  this  mission  were  to  gather  useful 


6  The  unpublished  documents  of  this  Department  are  preserved  in  the 
archives  of  the  Prefecture  at  Nantes,  and  through  the  courtesy  of  their 
custodians  I  was  enabled  to  examine  them  freely.  These  documents 
deal  with  all  the  revolutionary  changes  in  church  and  state  consequent 
upon  the  breaking  down  of  the  old  regime,  and  with  the  enrollment  of  vol- 
unteers and  the  dispatch  of  armed  forces  to  centers  of  disturbance 
throughout  that  district.  The  present  manuscripts  are  said  to  represent 
but  a  fraction  of  those  which  originally  existed,  the  archives  having  been 
subjected  to  repeated  raids,  thefts,  and  wanton  destruction  by  fire  and 
other  means.  The  most  important  have  been  listed  and  published  by  the 
Government  in  summary  form  under  the  title,  Les  Archives  du  Ddpartement 
de  la  Loire  Inftrieure,  1790-1799,  Serie  L.  (Nantes,  1909). 


LIEUTENANT  JEAX  AUDUBOX          ANNE    MOYNET   AUDUBON 

AFTER    OIL   PORTRAITS   PAINTED    BETWEEN    1801    AND    1806,    NOW    IN    POSSESSION    OF 
M.     I..     I.AVUiNE,     AT    COl'KRON. 


•JKAN    A  I  Dl" BON 

AFTER     AN     Oil      PORTRAIT    PAINTED     HY    TIIK     AMER- 
ICAN  ARTIST  POLK,  AT  PHILADELPHIA,  ABOUT 

ITS!),    NOW    IX    POSSESSION    01     MltS.    M  OK  HIS 
IHVVK    TYLER.       PriM.lsiiKI)    KY    COUR- 
TESY OF    MISS    M  V  It  I  \    K.    AUDUBON. 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    79 

information  on  the  civil,  moral  and  political  state  of  the 
district,  "in  order  to  bring  a  remedy,"  and  to  administer 
the  oath  of  allegiance  to  all  administrative  and  judicial 
bodies.  Jean  began  operations  without  delay,  and  his 
report,  which  was  kept  in  journal  form  and  embraces 
the  period  from  January  19  to  September  10,  1793,  is 
an  interesting  document ;  it  covers  fifty-one  large  fools- 
cap pages,  written  now  in  a  fine  and  again  in  a  bold, 
regular  hand,  in  the  course  of  which  his  characteristic 
signature6  occurs  no  less  than  twenty-two  times,  each 


ONE  OF  JEAN  AUDUBON'S  SIGNATURES  IN  HIS  REPORT  TO  THE  DIRECTORY,  1793. 
From  the  original  in  the  archives  of  the  prefecture  at  Nantes. 

section  of  the  report  having  been  signed  as  completed. 
In  one  section  of  this  journal  he  wrote:  "Our  opera- 
tions having  been  finished,  we  assembled  around  the  tree 
of  liberty,  and  there  sang  the  hymn  of  the  Marseillaise, 
which  was  interrupted  with  frequent  shouts  of  'Vive  la 
republique!,'  'Vive  la  nation!,'  and  more  than  one  charge 
of  musketry." 

Jean  Audubon  with  eight  others  was  charged  with  or- 
ganizing the  National  Guard  in  the  canton  of  Pellerin, 
and  ordered  to  accompany  the  detachment  that  marched 
to  the  relief  of  Pornic,  March  27,  1793.  The  Citizen 
was  busy  also  in  other  directions.  He  said  in  his  report : 

•During  the  Revolution  Jean  Audubon  always  added  to  his  signature 
the  cabalistic  sign  of  three  dots  between  parallel  lines,  which  possibly 
stood  for  the  three  watchwords  of  the  Republic — "Libertt,  Egalitd,  Fra- 
ternitt." 


80         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  virtue  of  the  power  conferred  upon  us  by  the  Central 
Committee,  on  the  ninth  of  April  we  were  transported  to  the 
parish  of  Coueron,  where  we  arrived  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
morning.  Proclamations  were  posted  both  at  Coueron  and  at 
Port  Launay  close  by,  while  some  were  sent  across  the  river  to 
Pellerin.  We  availed  ourselves  on  this  occasion  of  the  services 
of  two  officers  of  a  corsair,  who  demanded  that  we  aid  in  re- 
moving from  Pellerin  four  cannon  with  four-pound  balls,  and 
we  succeeded  in  putting  to  flight  a  small  barque  and  four 
men,  who  an  hour  later  returned  with  cannon.  .  .  .  The  parish 
of  Coueron  appears  very  tranquil,  and  is  in  a  better  mood  than 
[at  first]  seemed  to  us. 

A  little  later  Jean  proceeded  to  Paimooeuf  on  a  simi- 
lar errand.  His  letters  to  the  citizen-administrators  of 
that  commune  are  dated  at  Nantes  on  the  seventeenth 
of  April  and  the  fourteenth  of  May;  in  one  of  these  he 
refers  to  "the  sum  of  four  hundred  francs"  due  from 
the  Administration  "for  one  year's  rent  of  my  house  in 
calle  Rondineau  (a  la  calle  rondino),  which  you  have 
taken  for  a  corps  de  garde"  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  32) . 

In  July  and  August  of  this  second  year  of  the  Repub- 
lic, Citizen  Audubon  was  sent  to  his  native  town  of  Les 
Sables  d'Olonne  to  follow  the  movements  of  the  loyalist 
generals  Westermann  and  Boulart,7  a  mission  which 

7  In  the  published  orders  and  correspondence  of  the  royalist  General 
Boulart  the  following  letter,  given  here  in  translation,  is  addressed  to 
Citizen  Audubon:  "I  give  you  notice,  Citizen,  that  my  aide-de-camp  will 
arrive  immediately  from  Niort.  I  beg  you  to  do  all  in  your  power  to 
come  this  evening  to  confer  with  me,  since  I  have  something  to  ask 
you  of  the  utmost  importance.  I  also  inform  you  that  there  has  arrived 
at  Les  Sables  Citizen  Anguis,  the  people's  representative.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  more  advantageous  that  you  should  see  him  this  evening,  and 
that  tomorrow  early  we  attempt  to  bring  all  three  together.  You  could 
depart  in  the  morning  for  Nantes."  [Signed]  "THE  GENERAL  BOULART." 
Jean  Audubon  filed  this  letter  from  the  enemy  with  his  Department,  but  his 
answer  is  not  given.  See  Ch.  L.  Chassin,  Etudes  Documentaires  sur  La 
Revolution  Frangaise:  La  Vendee  Patriote,  1793-1800,  vol.  ii,  p.  306,  t.  1-4 
(Paris,  1894-1896). 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    81 

could  hardly  have  been  agreeable  if,  as  seems  to  have 
been  the  case,  some  of  his  own  people  were  loyal  to  the 
old  regime.  Correspondence  by  sea  between  Les  Sables 
and  Nantes,  which  was  open  before  the  siege,  was  not 
broken  at  this  time,  for  the  royalists  had  named  one  of 
their  representatives,  Benoit,  as  a  delegate  "to  fraternize 
with  the  citizens  of  Nantes,  to  invite  the  authorities  to 
correspond,  and  beg  them  to  send  food  if  they  had  more 
than  they  required."  Four  of  Jean's  letters,  dated  at 
Les  Sables  on  the  fifth  and  eighth  of  July  and  the  sixth 
of  August,  besides  one  from  La  Rochelle  on  the  four- 
teenth of  July,  all  addressed  to  the  Administration  of 
the  Loire  inferieure,  have  been  preserved. 

In  the  manuscript  records  of  the  Department  for 
1793  is  found  also  a  notice  of  Jean's  appointment  as  Spe- 
cial Commissioner,  with  a  memorandum  of  all  the  money 
paid  to  reimburse  him  for  the  expenses  of  his  numerous 
journeys.  Thus,  it  is  noted  that  he  had  been  paid  145 
francs  for  a  service  of  twenty-nine  days,  which  would 
represent  the  modest  allowance  of  a  dollar  a  day.  An- 
other item  shows  that  he  had  received  100  francs  for  a 
tour  of  ten  days ;  a  note  which  was  added  to  this  item 
to  explain  the  Directory's  sanction  for  the  payment  of 
another  forty-five  francs  and  ten  sous  reads  as  follows : 
"by  its  order  of  the  sixth  of  March  last,  the  Council  had, 
in  effect,  named  Citizen  Audubon  as  its  Commissioner, 
to  visit  the  coasts  and  to  secure  signatures,  with  full 
power  to  treat  with  all  people,  to  acquire  materials 
for  the  navy  and  other  objects  of  his  mission;  if  this 
mission  did  not  prove  successful,  it  was  solely  through 
force  of  circumstances,  and  not  from  any  lack  of  zeal 
on  his  part." 

8  D4lib6rations-Arr$tfo  de  Directoire  du  Dtpartement.  In  MSS.  pp. 
107-108. 


82         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

On  the  twenty-fifth  of  June,  1793,  while  engaged  in 
duties  to  which  we  have  just  referred,  Jean  Audubon 
was  appointed,  with  rank  of  ensign,  to  command  the 
Republican  lugger  named  the  Cerberus?  During  this 
charge,  which  lasted  until  the  twenty-second  of  Novem- 
ber of  the  following  year,  he  fought  one  of  the  stiffest 
engagements  of  his  career.  On  the  twelfth  of  July  he 
encountered  the  Brilliant,  an  English  privateer  of  four- 
teen cannon  which  had  captured  an  American  ship  laden 
with  flour ;  and  after  a  desperate  battle  which  lasted  three 
hours,  in  the  course  of  which  Jean  was  wounded  in  the 
left  thigh,  the  Englishman,  beaten  and  obliged  to  sur- 
render his  prize,  was  glad  to  escape  under  cover  of  night. 
Jean  towed  the  American  into  the  port  of  La  Rochelle, 
and  afterwards  sent  to  the  Administration  a  full  account 
of  the  engagement.10  Ensign  Audubon's  next  command 
was  a  dispatch  boat  called  L'Eveitte  ("The  Awak- 
ened"), on  which  he  served  for  nearly  nine  months,  from 
November  23,  1794,  to  August  14,  1795.  He  was  then 
detailed  for  port  duty  at  La  Rochelle  from  August  15, 
1795,  to  January  24,  1797.  His  last  ship  was  L'lnsti- 
tuteur  ("The  Institutor" ) ,  which  he  commanded  with 
the  rank  of  lieutenant  de  vaisseau,  January  25  to 
October  3,  1797,  while  he  was  engaged  in  govern- 
mental business  between  the  ports  of  La  Ro- 
chelle and  Brest. 

The  financial  losses  which  Lieutenant  Audubon  sus- 
tained at  Les  Cayes  in  consequence  of  the  revolution 
in  Santo  Domingo  were  a  crushing  blow  to  him ;  he  never 
recovered  his  fortune,  later  estimated  by  his  son-in-law 

9  Jean  was  actually  in  command  of  this  war  vessel  in  March  of  that 
year,  as  shown  by  a  document  given  in  full  in  Chapter  IV  (p.  59). 

10  These   records    are   on   file   in   the   archives    of  the   Department   of 
Marine  at  Paris,  but  access  to  them  will  doubtless  be  denied  until  peace 
is  restored  in  Europe. 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    83 

at  a  sum  which  at  that  day  would  have  been  fabulous.11 
The  business  house  in  which  he  was  interested  failed ;  his 
plantations,  refinery,  houses  and  stores,  the  rents  from 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  in  certain  years  after  1789,  had 
yielded  90,000  francs,  were  presumably  ravaged  and 
partially  destroyed.  When  the  news  of  this  misfortune 
reached  him  after  1792,  his  hands  were  tied  by  revolu- 
tions at  home.  Though  he  applied  to  his  Government 
for  relief,  as  undoubtedly  did  a  host  of  other  losers,  he 
was  eventually  granted  only  a  small  indemnity,  not 
exceeding  30,000  francs. 

Friends  of  Jean  Audubon  at  Nantes  had  made  re- 
peated demands  of  the  Ministry  of  Marine  that  he  be 
given  a  rank  more  in  accord  with  his  patriotism  and  effi- 
cient service  to  the  State,  and  on  October  11,  1797,  he 
was  commissioned  lieutenant-commander  (lieutenant  de 
vaisseau}^2  one  grade  below  that  of  captain.  He  held 
this  rank  for  three  years,  during  which  he  was  engaged 
in  vigilance  service  at  Les  Sables  d'Olonne  and  in  mili- 
tary duty  at  Rochefort,  or  until  he  was  retired  from 
the  navy  for  disability,  January  1,  1801  (le  11  nivose, 
an  9),  at  the  age  of  fifty-seven.13  He  had  served  the 

11 M.  L.  Lavigne  writes  that  he  possesses  a  copy  of  a  letter  addressed 
by  M.  G.  L.  du  Puigaudeau  to  a  lawyer  in  Paris,  in  which  it  is  stated 
that  Lieutenant  Audubon's  losses  amounted  to  1,500,000  francs.  After 
making  due  allowance  for  the  psychological  tendency  to  overestimate  losses, 
especially  when  sustained  in  remote  and  romantic  lands,  the  true  amount 
was  no  doubt  large. 

"Or  "lieutenant  of  a  frigate,"  and  corresponding  to  "mate"  in  the 
merchant  marine. 

"The  certificate  which  Lieutenant  Audubon  received  at  the  time  of 
his  discharge  is  preserved  among  the  Lavigne  manuscripts  and  docu- 
ments at  Coueron,  and  is  headed: 

PORT  ETAT  des  Services  du  Citoyen  Jean  Audubon  natif  des 

DE  Sables   d'Ollonne   Departement   de   La   Vendee   age"   de 

ROCHEFORT.  58  ans. 

It  is  signed  by  the  Chief  of  Administration,  Daniel,  the  Naval  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  District,  Martin,  and  by  the  naval  commissioner 
and  clerk,  February  26,  1801  (le  sept  Ventose,  an  9  de  la  Republique). 


84        AUDUBON.  THE  NATURALIST 

iSenti 


CERTIFICATE  OF  SERVICE  OF  LIEUTENANT  JEAN  AUDUBON,  FEBRUARY  26,  1801. 

From  a  photograph  of  the  original  in  the  Lavigne  MSS. 

State  for  over  eight  years,  and  his  total  period  of  active 
duty  on  sea  and  land  when  employed  in  the  merchant 
marine  and  navy  of  France,  as  estimated  from  port  to 
port,  amounted  to  nineteen  years,  nine  months  and 
twelve  days,  while  it  had  extended  with  interruptions 
over  more  than  forty  years.14  After  this  long  period 

14  Jean  Audubon  was  11  years,  6  months  and  25  days  in  the  service  of 
the  merchant  marine  of  France  (service  au  commerce),  in  the  course  of 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    85 

of  service,  when,  suffering  from  a  pulmonary  affection, 
he  applied  to  his  Government  for  a  pension,  he  received 
the  paltry  annuity  of  600  francs  or  $120. 

With  this  modest  pension  and  a  property  yielding 
an  income  not  above  $2,000  a  year,15  Lieutenant  Audu- 
bon  retired  to  his  quiet  villa  of  "La  Gerbetiere,"  at  Coue- 
ron,  where  he  could  indulge  his  taste  for  country  life  and 
for  raising  his  favorite  fruits  and  flowers ;  he  is  said  to 
have  kept  some  live  stock,  but  could  have  been  a  farmer 
only  on  a  modest  scale.  Meanwhile  he  continued  to 
maintain  a  house,  or  at  least  rooms,  at  Nantes,  whither 
he  went  periodically  to  conduct  his  correspondence  and 
business  affairs.  The  following  letter  of  attorney,  issued 
by  Lieutenant  Audubon  a  year  after  he  had  retired  from 
the  navy,  shows  that  he  still  had  interests  in  Santo  Do- 
mingo, and  was  endeavoring  to  collect  rents,  long  over- 
due, from  houses  and  stores  that  belonged  either  to 
himself  or  to  his  clients.  Whether  through  the  dishon- 
esty of  agents  or  from  what  other  cause,  this  property 
which  the  elder  Audubon  held  in  his  own  right  seems 
gradually  to  have  melted  away: 

The  19th  pluviose,  in  the  eleventh  year  of  the  Republic, 
one  and  indivisible  [January  7,  1802],  before  the  public  no- 
taries of  the  department  of  Loire  inferieure,  who  reside  in 
Nantes  and  Doulon,  the  undersigned  have  seen  present  the 

which  he  rose  to  the  rank  of  captain  of  the  first  grade  in  1774.  He 
served  in  the  French  navy  (service  a  Vetat)  8  years,  2  months  and  17 
days,  ranking  successively  as  sailor,  ensign-commander,  and  lieutenant- 
commander  (lieutenant  de  vaisseau);  8  months  and  22  days  of  this  period 
(1768-1769)  were  in  intervals  of  peace,  and  7  years,  5  months  and  25  days 
(1793-1801),  in  times  of  war.  Any  conflict  which  may  seem  to  occur  in 
titles  must  be  attributed  to  this  double  service. 

"This  property  was  evidently  encumbered  to  a  considerable  extent, 
for  he  repeatedly  filed  with  the  Department  letters  for  the  removal  of 
restrictions  placed  upon  it  (lettres  pour  obtenir  la  main  levee).  I  can- 
not give  the  dates  of  these  letters,  but  believe  that  they  were  drawn  in 
1801  or  shortly  after. 


86        AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

citizen  Jean  Audubon,  lieutenant  of  frigate,  retired,  and  pro- 
prietor at  Santo  Domingo,  aged  59  years,  infirm  and  unable 
in  consequence  of  his  infirmities  to  go  himself  to  attend  to  his 
business  affairs  in  Santo  Domingo,  living  in  Rubens  Street,  in 
the  Mocquard  house,16  No.  39,  in  the  city  and  commune  of 
Nantes,  department  of  Loire  inferieure: 

Who  has  made  and  constituted  for  his  general  and  special 
attorney  Jean  Fran£ois  Blanchard,  merchant,  and  originally 
from  the  commune  of  Chataubriand,  department  of  Loire  in- 
ferieure, living  at  the  town  of  Les  Cayes,  in  the  southern  section 
of  the  island  of  Santo  Domingo,  opposite  He  a  Vaches,  to  whom 
he  gives  full  and  complete  powers  to  revoke  for  him,  and  in 
his  name,  every  preceding  bill  of  attorney,  for  the  purpose  of 
managing  the  stores  [magazins]  at  Les  Cayes,  in  the  southern 
part  of  Santo  Domingo,  opposite  He  a  Vaches :  To  demand  and 
obtain  all  accounts  from  the  holders  of  said  properties,  who 
have  had  or  still  have  charge  of  them  there;  to  examine  the 
said  accounts,  to  debate,  close  up  and  stop  them  ...  to  lease 
the  said  properties,  without  the  power  of  making  any  exten- 
sive repairs  to  them  whatsoever,  about  which  he  had  not  in- 
formed the  constituent  in  France,  and  that  he  has  not  author- 
ized him  there  to  do,  at  least  by  a  special  letter,  it  being  under- 
stood that  the  actual  tenant  is  obliged  to  make  all  the  neces- 
sary repairs  to  the  said  houses  and  stores  to  the  extent  of 
15,000  francs,  and  he  should  not  use  more  than  4,000  francs 
yearly  for  the  space  of  five  years,  counting  from  the  month  of 
thermidor,  year  8  [July  19-August  17,  1800]. 

It  is  demanded  of  citizeness  Fauveau,  or  of  her  assigns,  to 
know  the  reason  why  she  has  failed,  to  the  present  moment,  to 
pay  to  the  constituent  in  France  for  the  domicile  of  the  citi- 
zeness Coy r on,17  the  twelve  thousand  six  hundred  francs  that 

"This  house  was  rented  at  the  time  to  Francoise  Mocquard  (see 
Note  7,  Vol.  I,  p.  57),  but  it  is  probable  that  Lieutenant  Audubon  had 
reserved  rooms  which  were  occupied  during  his  visits  to  the  city  while 
his  permanent  home  was  at  Coueron.  In  the  power  of  attorney  issued 
by  Jean  Audubon,  his  wife,  and  Claude  Francois  Rozier,  at  Nantes,  April 
4,  1806,  the  senior  Audubon  gave  his  residence  as  "rue  Rubens,  No.  39." 

"Presumably   a   widow   of   one  of  the   Coyrons    (or   Coironds),  mer- 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    87 

she  should  annually  pay  to  him,  according  to  the  act  of  July 
15,  1788,  as  given  by  Domergue,  notary  at  Les  Cayes.  You 
will  satisfy  them  with  the  state  of  the  dwelling  house  in  the 
plain  of  Jacob,  opposite  He  a  Vaches. 

This  was  sold  by  the  said  act  to  the  said  citizeness  Fauveau 
and  to  her  late  husband  by  the  said  constituents,  to  whom  he 
will  report  regularly  on  the  state  of  affairs,  at  least  twice  in 
the  year.  .  .  . 

[Signed  at  Nantes]  J.  ROYER  [one  of 
the  undersigned  notaries] 

Lieutenant  Jean  Audubon  died  at  Nantes,18  when  on 
a  visit  to  that  city,  on  February  19,  1818,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-four,  "regretted  most  deservedly,"  said  his  son, 
"on  account  of  his  simplicity,  truth,  and  perfect  sense 
of  honesty" ;  "his  manners,"  he  continues,  "were  those  of 
a  most  polished  gentleman  .  .  .  and  his  natural  under- 

chants  at  Nantes,  whose  business  interests  in  Santo  Domingo  were  en- 
trusted to  Jean  Audubon's  hands  in  1783  (see  Chapter  III,  p.  38). 

"The  following  extract  from  the  registry  of  deaths  at  Nantes,  which 
is  here  given  in  translation,  indicates  that  Lieutenant  Audubon  passed 
away  suddenly,  since  his  death  did  not  occur  in  his  own  apartments  (for 
original  see  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  19): 

"In  the  year  1818,  on  the  19th  day  of  February,  at  eleven  o'clock 
in  the  morning,  in  the  presence  of  the  undersigned,  deputies  and  officers 
of  the  civil  service,  delegates  of  Monsieur  the  Mayor  of  Nantes,  have 
appeared  the  Messrs.  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  gentleman  of  leisure, 
son-in-law  of  the  deceased,  residing  hereafter  at  Coueron,  and  Francis 
Guillet,  grocer,  living  on  the  Quai  de  la  Fosse,  of  legal  age,  who  have 
certified  in  our  presence  that  on  this  day,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
Jean  Audubon,  retired  ship-captain,  pensioner  of  the  State,  born  at  Les 
Sables  d'Olonne,  department  of  La  Vendee,  husband  of  Anne  Moinet, 
died  in  the  house  of  Mile.  Berthier,  in  the  Chauss£e  de  le  Madeleine,  No. 
24,  4th  Canton. 

"The  witnesses  have  signed  with  us  the  present  act,  after  it  was 
read  to  them.  The  deceased  was  74  years  of  age." 

("  GABRIEL  LOYEN  DU  PUIGAUDEAU, 

"Signed  in  the  register :•{  GUILLET,  and  JOSKPII   DE  LA 
[  TULLAYE,  deputy." 

The  Audubons  and  Du  Puigaudeaus  were  probably  buried  in  one  of 
the  large  cemeteries  at  Nantes,  since  no  trace  of  their  graves  has  been 
found  at  Coueron  by  M.  Lavigne. 


88         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

standing  had  been  carefully  improved  both  by  observa- 
tion and  by  self  education."  Jean  Audubon's  means  in 
France  had  been  reduced  partly  by  bad  debts,  for  he 
seems  to  have  been  generous  in  lending  money  to  his 
friends;  Madame  Audubon  found  herself  greatly  ham- 
pered by  lack  of  ready  money,  although,  as  her  son- 
in-law  remarked,  her  hands  were  full  of  notes. 

When  Jean  Audubon  applied  for  nomination  to  the 
naval  service  of  the  Republic  in  1793,  we  find  a  descrip- 
tion of  his  previous  life  and  habits  recorded  as  a  part 
of  the  information  required  by  the  Committee  of  Pub- 
lic Safety.  The  commune  of  Nantes  at  that  time  gave 
a  flattering  testimonial  to  his  patriotism,  in  which  he 
was  described  as  an  officer  of  merit,  who  had  acquired 
through  long  experience  at  sea  an  extensive  knowledge 
of  navigation,  who  was  a  man  of  honor,  and  devoid  of 
any  inclination  to  vice  or  gambling ;  his  nautical  experi- 
ence had  been  chiefly  gained  in  American  waters,  the 
voyages  of  his  choice  being  those  to  Santo  Domingo  and 
the  United  States. 

At  the  age  of  forty-eight  the  elder  Audubon  thus 
briefly  described  himself:  short  in  stature,  measuring  five 
feet,  five  inches ;  figure,  oval ;  eyes,  blue ;  nose  and  mouth, 
large;  eyebrows,  auburn;  hair  and  beard  turned  gray. 
Contrary  to  the  naturalist's  expressed  belief,  there  seems 
to  have  been  little  or  no  physical  resemblance  between 
father  and  son.  At  a  corresponding  age,  John  James 
Audubon,  according  partly  to  his  own  account,  stood 
five  feet,  ten  inches  in  stockings;  his  hair  was  dark 
brown;  he  had  sunken,  hazel  eyes,  flecked  with  brown, 
and  of  remarkable  brightness ;  while  his  clean-cut  profile 
showed  an  aquiline  nose.  "In  temper,"  said  the  son,  to 
continue  the  comparison,  "we  much  resembled  each  other, 
being  warm,  irascible,  and  at  times  violent,  but  it  was 


LIEUT.  AUDUBON,  REVOLUTIONIST    89 

like  the  blast  of  a  hurricane,  dreadful  for  a  time,  when 
calm  almost  instantly  returned." 

Though  passionate  at  times,  Jean  Audubon  was  a 
man  of  force  and  decision,  as  his  career  amply  shows. 
If  he  does  not  loom  large  in  the  history  of  his  time  or 
was  but  little  known  beyond  the  limits  of  his  province, 
it  must  be  remembered  that  the  time  called  forth  thou- 
sands of  the  ablest  men  of  his  nation. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE 

Molding  of  Audubon's  character — Factor  of  environment — Turning  failure 
into  success — An  indulgent  stepmother — The  truant — His  love  of 
nature — Early  drawings  and  discipline — Experience  at  Rochefort — . 
Baptized  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

It  is  now  commonly  believed  that  of  the  three  great 
factors  which  mold  character — environment,  training 
and  heritage,  the  last  is  the  most  important,  since  it  alone 
is  predetermined  and  unalterable.  Environment  may 
be  uncertain  or  unsuitable,  training  defective  or  de- 
ferred, but  blood  is  the  one  possession  of  which  the 
child  cannot  be  robbed;  and  since  it  sets  the  limits  to 
possibility,  in  no  small  degree  must  it  determine  the  ac- 
quisitions and  accomplishments  of  a  lifetime.  This, 
however,  is  not  the  whole  truth.  Race  may  account  for 
much,  but  it  does  not  account  for  everything;  the  child 
is  effectually  robbed  whenever  it  is  not  permitted  to 
realize  to  the  full  upon  its  inheritance.  To  be  able  to 
convert  possibilities  into  actualities  it  must  receive  fit 
training  and  right  incentives,  and  if  at  critical  times  the 
proper  spur  is  wanting,  its  patrimony  may  be  sadly 
wasted.  The  "good  environment"  for  the  youth,  too 
often  thought  to  be  the  soft  conditions  of  an  easy  life, 
is  in  truth  that  only  which  provides  the  proper  and 
necessary  stimulus.  This  may  be  now  fear  or  pride,  now 
hard  necessity  or  bitter  want ;  again,  an  awakened  sense 
of  responsibility  or  ambition  to  excel  may  be  induced 

90 


SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE  91 

by  concrete  examples  and  fostered,  as  it  often  is,  by 
lofty  purposes  and  the  uplift  of  a  high  ideal. 

Audubon's  life  affords  a  striking  proof  of  the  power 
which  environment  can  exert  in  awakening  dormant 
capacity,  in  developing  talents  to  their  full  and  calling 
into  use  every  force  held  in  reserve.  When  we  consider 
what  his  life  work  finally  became,  and  what  he  eventu- 
ally accomplished  in  a  field  for  which  he  had  no  train- 
ing, except  in  drawing,  we  find  it  easier  to  wonder 
at  the  man  than  to  criticize  him.  With  a  formal  school- 
ing in  France  of  the  slenderest  sort,  in  which  the  writ- 
ing of  his  own  language  was  never  completely  mastered, 
at  eighteen  he  came  to  America  and  adopted  a  new 
tongue,  which  he  first  heard  from  the  Quakers.  Twenty 
years  more  were  to  elapse  before  he  had  a  definite  plan,— 
during  which  his  environment  was  mainly  that  of  a 
trader  and  storekeeper  in  the  backwoods,  never  remote 
from  the  white  man's  frontier,  hardly  the  soil  one  would 
seek  for  the  development  of  budding  talents  in  art,  lit- 
erature or  science.  Failure  in  trade  was  one  of  the 
spurs  which  started  Audubon  on  his  ultimate  career, 
for  it  led  to  the  immediate  development  of  the  talents 
which  he  possessed ;  the  encouragement  which  he  received 
from  his  wife  was  undoubtedly  another.  When  he  final- 
ly emerged,  like  a  somewhat  wild  but  well  ripened  fruit, 
at  the  age  of  forty,  rich  in  experience,  ready  to  absorb 
what  from  lack  of  earlier  motives  or  opportunities  he 
had  failed  to  acquire,  and  with  the  determination  to 
succeed,  he  won  recognition  as  much  through  his  person- 
ality and  enthusiasm  as  by  his  extraordinary  versatility 
and  talents. 

In  an  early  sketch  of  his  life  Audubon  said  that  his 
father  had  given  both  him  and  his  sister  an  education 
appropriate  to  his  purse;  his  teachers  were  possessed  of 


92         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

agreeable  talents,  and  he  might  have  stored  up  much 
had  not  the  continental  wars  in  which  France  was  then 
engaged  forced  him  from  school  at  an  early  age,  when, 
much  against  his  will,  he  entered  the  navy  as  midship- 
man, at  Rochefort.  This  naval  experience  terminated, 
as  he  then  recorded,  in  1802,  during  the  short  peace 
between  England  and  France;  he  was  then  seventeen 
years  of  age.1  This  was  the  year  following  his  father's 
retirement,  and  the  year  previous  to  his  first  independent 
visit  to  the  United  States. 

More  details  of  this  early  period  were  given  later, 
when  the  naturalist  spoke  with  great  affection  of  his 
foster  mother,  to  whom  his  education  had  been  mainly 
entrusted.  "Let  no  one  speak  of  her  as  my  step-moth- 
er," said  he;  "I  was  ever  to  her  as  a  son  of  her  own  flesh 
and  blood,  and  she  was  to  me  a  true  mother."  His  every 
idle  wish  was  gratified,  he  tells  us,  and  his  every  whim 
indulged,  in  accordance  with  the  notion  that  fine  clothes 
and  full  pockets  were  all  that  were  needed  to  make  the 
gentleman:  "She  hid  my  faults,  boasted  to  every  one 
of  my  youthful  merits,  and,  worse  than  all,  said  frequent- 
ly in  my  presence,  that  I  was  the  handsomest  boy  in 
France." 

If  Madame  Audubon  broke  the  prevailing  tradition 
and  by  going  to  the  other  extreme  did  her  best  to  spoil 
this  affectionate  boy,  some  allowance  must  be  made  for 
parental  over-indulgence.  In  1793,  when  the  future 
naturalist  was  eight  years  old,  the  public  buildings  of 

1  Audubon  said  that  he  was  at  the  time  fourteen  years  old,  which 
could  not  have  been  the  case,  but  when  writing  in  1835  he  placed  this 
experience  at  shortly  before  his  return  to  America,  which  would  have 
been  in  the  winter  of  1805-6;  "I  underwent,"  to  quote  this  later  account, 
"a  mockery  of  an  examination,  and  was  received  as  a  midshipman  in  the 
navy,  went  to  Rochefort,  was  placed  on  board  a  man-of-war,  and  ran  a 
short  cruise.  On  my  return,  my  father  had  in  some  way  obtained  pass- 
ports for  Rozier  and  me,  and  we  sailed  for  New  York." 


SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE  93 

his  city  had  been  converted  into  prisons  and  its  streets 
were  both  unsanitary  and  unsafe,  while  in  the  following 
year,  as  we  have  seen,  a  mortal  plague  began  to  rob 
the  prisons  and  the  guillotine.  Many  had  lost  their  all 
in  the  tempest  that  swept  over  them;  many  more  had 
fled,  and  public  schooling  at  Nantes  must  have  been  at  a 
stand  or  disorganized  for  a  considerable  period. 

Young  Audubon  could  not  have  tasted  much  school- 
ing before  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  when  he  was 
seven  years  old,  and  but  little  after  it,  since  this  dis- 
cipline practically  terminated  in  1802.  His  passionate 
love  of  nature,  which  was  undoubtedly  innate,  was  mani- 
fested at  an  early  day.  Living  things  of  every  descrip- 
tion which  he  found  by  the  banks  of  the  Loire  or  along 
the  stonewalls  and  hedgerows  of  Coueron  gave  him  the 
greatest  pleasure,  but  birds  were  his  early  favorites. 
These  he  soon  began  to  depict  with  pencil  and  crayon, 
but  to  the  dryer  discipline  of  the  school  he  ever  turned 
with  laggard  feet. 

When  the  versatile  Lord  Avebury,  who  became  one 
of  the  greatest  modern  students  of  the  powers  of  ants 
and  other  social  insects,  was  four  years  old,  his  mother 
made  this  record  in  her  diary:  "His  great  delight  is  in 
insects.  Butterflies,  Caterpillars  or  Beetles  are  great 
treasures,  and  he  is  watching  a  large  spider  outside  my 
window  most  anxiously."  The  same  boy  at  eight,  when 
writing  home  from  school,  added  this  postscript  to  a 
letter:  "I  am  a  favorite  with  most  of  the  boys  because 
I  do  not  care  about  being  laughed."  The  boy  who  has 
a  good  inheritance,  follows  his  own  bent,  and  does  "not 
care  about  being  laughed,"  may  be  on  the  road  to  success 
and  with  talents  may  achieve  distinction.  John  James 
Audubon  was  one  of  those  boys,  although  his  path  was 
never  strewn  with  the  roses  that  many  have  imagined. 


94,         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

The  naturalist  tells  us  that  his  father  hoped  that  he 
would  follow  in  his  footsteps,  or  else  become  an  engineer, 
and  he  saw  that  his  son  was  instructed  in  the  elements 
of  mathematics,  geography,  fencing  and  music.  But  as 
Lieutenant  Audubon  was  continually  on  the  move,  su- 
pervision in  those  matters  fell  to  the  over-indulgent  step- 
mother, with  the  result  that,  instead  of  doing  his  duties 
at  school,  young  Audubon  took  to  the  fields.  Every 
night,  he  said,  he  would  return  with  his  lunch  basket  well 
laden  with  the  spoils  of  the  day — birds'  nests,  eggs,  and 
curiosities  of  every  sort  destined  for  the  museum  into 
which  his  room  had  already  been  transformed.  He  was 
then  in  the  "collecting  stage,"  when  that  sense  of  pos- 
session dominates  the  heart  of  the  boy,  which,  if  well 
directed,  can  be  turned  to  excellent  account. 

Lieutenant  Audubon  encouraged  his  son's  taste  for 
natural  history  and  for  drawing,  but  did  not  regard  such 
accomplishments  as  a  substitute  for  what  he  considered 
more  serious  subjects.  He  himself  had  suffered  too 
much  from  lack  of  a  formal  education  and  was  resolved 
to  give  his  children  the  best  opportunities  within  their 
reach.  "Revolutions,"  he,  once  remarked,  according  to 
his  son,  "were  not  confined  to  society,  but  could  also 
take  place  in  the  lives  of  individuals,"  when  they  were  all 
"too  apt  to  lose  in  one  day  the  fortune  they  had  before 
possessed;  but  talents  and  knowledge,  added  to  sound 
mental  training,  assisted  by  honest  industry,"  could 
"never  fail,  nor  be  taken  from  any  one  when  once  the 
possessor  of  such  valuable  means." 

When  the  elder  Audubon  returned  from  one  of  his 
periodic  cruises,  "my  room,"  said  the  naturalist,  "made 
quite  a  show,"  and  the  father  complimented  him  on  his 
good  taste ;  but  upon  being  questioned  in  regard  to  the 
progress  made  in  his  other  studies,  he  could  only  hang  his 


SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE  95 

head  in  silence.  His  sister  Rosa,  on  the  contrary,  who 
was  also  called  to  account,  was  warmly  commended  upon 
the  improvement  shown  in  her  musical  exercises.  The 
next  morning  at  dawn  a  carriage  was  drawn  up  before 
the  Audubon  door,  and  with  the  father  and  son,  together 
with  the  latter's  trunk  and  violin,  was  soon  proceeding 
in  the  direction  of  Rochefort.  The  sailor  had  laid  his 
plans  and  was  about  to  execute  them  in  his  own  way. 
Presently,  said  the  son,  his  father  drew  forth  a  book 
and  began  to  read,  thus  leaving  him  to  his  own  resources. 
In  this  way  they  traveled  for  a  number  of  days,  not  an 
unnecessary  word  being  spoken  during  the  entire  jour- 
ney, until  the  walls  of  Rochefort  had  been  passed,  and 
they  alighted  at  the  door  of  the  father's  house  in  that 
city.  When  they  had  entered,  the  naturalist  continues, 
"my  father  bade  me  sit  by  his  side,  and  taking  one  of  my 
hands,  calmly  said  to  me:  'My  beloved  boy,  thou  art 
now  safe.  I  have  brought  thee  here  that  I  may  be  able 
to  pay  constant  attention  to  thy  studies;  thou  shalt 
have  ample  time  for  pleasures,  but  the  remainder  must 
be  employed  with  industry  and  care.  This  day  is  en- 
tirely thine,  and  as  I  must  attend  to  my  duties,  if  thou 
wishest  to  see  the  docks,  the  fine  ships-of-war,  and  walk 
around  the  wall,  thou  mayest  accompany  me.' ' 

The  youth  accepted  his  father's  proposal  with  good 
grace,  and  was  presented  to  the  officers  whom  they  met, 
but  he  soon  found  that  he  was  like  a  prisoner  of  war 
on  parade.  He  was  enrolled  at  once  in  the  military 
school,  where  he  was  placed  under  the  immediate  care 
of  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  his  future  brother-in- 
law.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  young  Audubon 
gave  his  guardian  the  slip;  he  jumped  from  the  window 
of  his  prison  and  made  for  the  gardens  of  the  Marine 
Secretariat,  but  a  corporal,  whom  he  had  recognized  as 


96         AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

a  friend,  suddenly  nipped  his  plans  in  the  bud ;  he  was 
ordered,  he  said,  aboard  a  pontoon,  then  lying  in  port, 
and  there  was  obliged  to  remain  until  his  father,  who 
was  absent  at  the  time,  finally  released  him,  "not  without 
a  severe  reprimand."  The  following  record,  written 
long  after,  is  reminiscent  of  this  period:  "This  day 
twenty-one  years  since  I  was  at  Rochefort  in  France. 
I  spent  most  of  the  day  at  copying  letters  of  my  father 
to  the  Minister  of  the  Navy.  .  .  .  What  has  happened 
to  me  since  would  fill  a  volume.  .  .  .  This  day,  January 
first,  1821,  I  am  on  a  keel  boat  going  down  to  New 
Orleans,  the  poorest  man  on  it." 

Audubon's  stay  at  Rochefort,  the  date  of  which  is 
no  doubt  correctly  given  in  the  journal  just  quoted,  was 
iestined  to  be  short.  After  a  year  he  returned  to  Nantes, 
and  later  to  "La  Gerbetiere,"  where  as  before  he  spent 
all  of  his  leisure  in  roaming  the  fields  and  looking  for 
birds,  their  nests,  their  eggs  and  their  young.  At  about 
this  time,  when  fifteen  years  of  age,  Audubon  began 
to  make  a  collection  of  his  original  drawings  of  French 
birds,  which  was  greatly  extended  in  1805  and  1806. 

He  has  recorded  that  at  the  behest  of  his  foster  moth- 
er, who  was  an  ardent  Catholic,  he  was  confirmed  in  that 
Church  when  "within  a  few  months  of  being  seventeen 
years  old";  he  was  surprised  and  indifferent,  but  "took 
to  the  catechism,  studied  it  and  other  matters  pertaining 
to  the  ceremony,  and  all  was  performed  to  her  liking." 
Since  no  record  of  this  act  has  been  found,  it  is  probable 
that  the  ceremony  in  question  was  confused  with  that 
of  his  baptism,  which,  as  we  have  noticed,  occurred  on 
October  23,  1800,  six  months  before  he  attained  his 
sixteenth  birthday. 

After  having  seen  something  of  the  character  of  Au- 
dubon's early  training  in  France,  it  will  not  be  surpris- 


SCHOOL  DAYS  IN  FRANCE  97 

ing  to  find  that  when,  at  the  age  of  forty-five,  he  first 
seriously  began  to  write  for  publication  and  in  English, 
which  was  not  his  mother  tongue,  he  found  himself  han- 
dicapped in  many  ways.  In  after  life  he  wrote  that  the 
only  school  which  he  had  ever  attended  was  that  of  Ad- 
versity, and  that  his  tuition  there  had  been  of  a  pro- 
longed and  elaborate  character.  Though  this  statement 
was  made  under  the  stress  of  present  feeling,  it  was 
not  wholly  devoid  of  truth. 


CHAPTER  VII 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  THE  UNITED  STATES,  AND  LIFE  AT 
"MILL  GROVE" 

Audubon  is  sent  to  the  United  States  to  learn  English  and  enter  trade — 
Taken  ill— Befriended  by  the  Quakers— Settles  at  "Mill  Grove"  farm- 
Its  history  and  attractions — Studies  of  American  birds  begun — En- 
gagement to  Lucy  Bakewell — Sports  and  festivities. 

If  there  were  ever  a  time  when  Lieutenant  Audubon 
wished  to  see  his  son  following  the  victorious  eagles  of 
Napoleon,  whom  he  is  said  to  have  idolized,  the  hated 
conscription  of  that  day,  which  was  robbing  every  home 
in  France  of  its  best  blood,  might  well  have  brought 
counsels  of  prudence.  Little  could  the  father  have 
thought  that  by  following  other  eagles  of  his  own  choice, 
his  son  was  destined  to  add  a  far  greater  luster  to  the 
family  name.  Whatever  may  have  turned  the  scale,  in 
1803  a  decision  was  quickly  reached,  and  the  issue  was 
fortunate  for  the  future  of  natural  science  in  America; 
it  was  decided  that  young  Audubon  should  emigrate 
at  once  to  the  United  States,  with  what  end  in  view  we 
shall  soon  see  expressed  in  the  sailor's  own  words.  Ac- 
cordingly, to  his  "intense  and  indescribable  pleasure," 
the  future  naturalist,  who  had  now  passed  his  eighteenth 
birthday,  eagerly  prepared  for  the  journey,  the  first  of 
many  that  were  later  to  become  memorable  in  the  annals 
of  American  science.  No  record  of  this  voyage  has  been 
preserved,  but  from  evidence  derived  from  a  variety  of 
sources  we  can  fix  the  time  as  the  autumn  of  1803.1 

1  Audubon,  writing  in  1820,  described  himself  at  this  time  as  "a 
young  man  of  seventeen,  sent  to  America  to  make  money  (for  such 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  99 

Audubon's  introduction  to  the  country  of  his  adoption 
proved  most  inauspicious,  for,  to  follow  his  account, 
when  walking  to  Greenwich  in  Connecticut,  some  thirty 
miles  from  New  York,  to  cash  the  letter  of  credit  that 
his  father  had  given  him,  he  was  seized  with  the  yellow 
fever.2  Fortunately  at  this  critical  moment  his  captain 
came  to  his  aid,  and  placed  him  in  the  care  of  two  Quaker 
ladies  who  kept  a  boarding  house  at  Morristown  in  New 
Jersey.  To  the  faithful  ministrations  of  these  kindly 
sisters  the  naturalist  believed  that  he  owed  his  life. 

When  Jean  Audubon  finally  left  the  United  States 
not  far  from  the  beginning  of  1790,  he  placed  his  busi- 
ness interests  in  America  in  charge  of  an  agent,  named 
Miers  Fisher,  "a  rich  and  honest  Quaker  of  Philadel- 

was  my  father's  wish),  brought  up  in  France  in  easy  circumstances;" 
but  in  the  same  journal  he  said  that  he  did  not  reach  Philadelphia  until 
three  months  after  landing,  and  that  "shortly  after"  his  arrival  at  "Mill 
Grove"  the  Bakewell  family  moved  to  "Fatland  Ford."  Mr.  G.  W.  Bake- 
well,  the  historian  of  his  family,  states  that  in  the  spring  of  1804,  William 
Bakewell,  Audubon's  future  father-in-law,  with  his  son,  Thomas,  traveled 
through  Pennsylvania,  Virginia  and  Maryland  in  search  of  a  farm;  they 
purchased  "Fatland  Ford,"  which  was  then  the  property  of  James  Vaux. 
Audubon's  account  of  the  Pewee  (Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  ii,  p.  124) 
shows  that  he  was  at  "Mill  Grove"  before  April  10,  when  "the  ground 
was  still  partially  covered  with  snow,  and  the  air  retained  the  piercing 
chill  of  winter."  If  these  various  statements  are  correct,  they  would  indi- 
cate that  Audubon  left  Nantes  about  the  middle  of  November,  1803, 
and  that  he  finally  reached  "Mill  Grove"  not  far  from  the  end  of 
March,  1804.  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  W.  H.  Wetherill,  the  present 
owner  of  "Mill  Grove,"  informs  me  that  his  records  indicate  that  the 
Bakewells  occupied  "Fatland  Ford"  in  January,  1804.  If  this  were  the 
case,  young  Audubon  could  not  have  left  France  later  than  August, 
1803.  Too  much  weight,  however,  should  not  be  attached  to  such  references 
of  a  biographical  character  in  Audubon's  own  writings;  for  in  the  account 
referred  to  above  Audubon  said  that  after  his  first  visit  to  the  United 
States  he  remained  two  years  in  France  and  returned  to  America  "early 
in  August;"  while  we  know  that  his  sojourn  in  France  lasted  but  little 
more  than  a  year  and  that  he  landed  in  New  York  on  the  28th  of  May. 
8  A  plague  of  genuine  yellow  fever  had  visited  New  York  in  1795, 
but  in  1804  and  1805  the  city  suffered  from  a  malignant  fever  of  another 
type,  and  to  such  an  extent  that  27,000  persons,  or  one-third  of  the 
entire  population,  are  said  to  have  fled  to  escape  the  pestilence.  This 
was  possibly  the  malady  which  seized  young  Audubon  not  far  from  the 
beginning  of  the  former  year. 


100       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

phia,"  and  to  the  hands  of  this  trustworthy  man  he  now 
confided  his  son.  Accordingly,  when  young  Audubon 
had  been  nursed  back  to  health,  word  was  sent  to  his 
father's  friend,  who  came  in  his  carriage  and  drove  the 
lad  to  his  own  home  in  the  outskirts  of  Philadelphia.  To 
follow  the  account  which  the  naturalist  gave,  when  writ- 
ing of  this  visit  a  quarter  of  a  century  later,  his  host, 
finding  his  charge  to  be  a  comely  youth,  and  having  a 
daughter  "of  no  mean  appearance,"  proposed  that  he 
should  remain  with  them  and  become  one  of  the  family. 
Audubon  seems  to  have  suspected  that  this  was  a  pre- 
meditated scheme  to  entangle  him  in  marriage,  and  as 
he  had  no  liking  for  the  severity  of  Quaker  manners, 
determined  to  make  his  escape.  This,  he  said,  was  finally 
accomplished  by  appealing  to  his  own  rights  and  to  the 
honest  Quaker's  sense  of  duty  in  seeing  him  established 
on  the  estate  which  his  father  had  designed  for  him. 
Though  effective  for  the  time,  as  will  presently  appear, 
this  appeal  was  quite  fanciful,  for  Jean  Audubon's  ideas 
concerning  the  future  of  his  son  were  of  a  more  practical 
character,  and  he  had  no  intention  at  this  time  of  estab- 
lishing him  at  "Mill  Grove,"  which  was  soon  to  be  sold. 
The  friend  to  whom  the  following  letter  was  addressed 
is  implored  to  aid  in  finding  a  good  American  family 
in  which  his  son  could  acquire  the  English  language  as 
a  step  to  entering  trade:3 

This  will  be  handed  to  you  by  my  son,  to  whom,  I  request 
you  will  render  every  service  in  your  power,  wishing  that  you 
shd.  join  Mr.  Miers  Fisher  to  procure  him  a  good  and  healthy 
place  where  he  might  learn  english.  I  come  to  point  out  to 

8  The  rough  draft  of  a  letter  in  English,  evidently  written  by  Lieutenant 
Audubon  to  be  delivered  by  his  son  to  the  ship's  captain,  and  probably 
in  duplicate  to  his  agent,  Miers  Fisher,  but  bearing  no  name  or  date, 
(Lavigne  MSS.) 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  101 

you  Morrlstown,  and  look  for  a  good  and  decent  familly  in  that 
place  to  recommend  him  to  her  as  your  own  Son.  This  service 
from  you  will  deserve  my  everlasting  gratitude.  I  am  Sir,  with 
consideration. 

Yr  Mo  ob  Ser— . 

Mr.  Miers  Fisher,  who  evidently  received  a  copy  of  this 
letter,  no  doubt  considered  his  own  family  as  good  as 
the  best,  and  in  detaining  young  Audubon  at  his  home, 
we  must  credit  him  with  the  desire  of  following  the  in- 
structions thus  received. 

"Mill  Grove,"  which  was  finally  reached  in  the  spring 
of  1804,4  was  a  new-found  paradise  to  the  young  natu- 
ralist. Here,  however,  he  was  destined  to  spend  but  little 
over  a  year,  though  it  was  doubtless  the  happiest  year 
of  his  life.  The  farm  was  then  conducted  by  a  Quaker, 
named  William  Thomas,  who  was  installed  as  tenant 
with  his  wife  and  family.  It  was  arranged,  said  Audu- 
bon, that  he  should  receive  from  them  a  quarterly  allow- 
ance in  ready  money,  in  a  sum  that  "was  considered 
sufficient  for  the  expenditure  of  a  young  gentleman." 

Well  might  any  youth  fond  of  wild  life  in  the  country 
have  fallen  in  love  with  this  secluded  spot,  the  beauty 
and  charm  of  which  are  suddenly  revealed  to  the  visitor 
of  today  as  he  approaches  it  from  the  old  Philadelphia 
road.  Standing  high  on  the  rugged  banks  of  the  Perkio- 
ming  Creek,  which  empties  into  the  Schuylkill  River 
just  below  this  point,  the  old  house,  facing  west,  com- 
mands a  wide  and  diversified  scene,  extending  from  the 
living  waters  below,  over  bottom  lands  of  the  valley,  to 
the  dim,  undulating  lines  of  the  Reading  hills  in  the  f  ar- 

4  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  98. 

"The  yearly  rent  of  "Mill  Grove"  in  1804,  according  to  the  accounts 
of  Francis  Dacosta,  who  had  then  acquired  a  half  interest  in  it,  amounted 
to  ,$353.34. 


102       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ther  distance.  This  old  landmark 6  of  Colonial  times  re- 
mains today  in  perfect  preservation,  thanks  to  the  never- 
failing  care  and  interest  of  the  present  owner,7  who  has 
done  all  in  his  power  to  maintain  its  historic  associations, 
and  to  keep  the  memory  of  the  naturalist  green  in  one 
of  the  few  spots  in  America  where  material  landmarks 
of  his  career  have  not  been  completely  effaced.  The 
place  has  had  an  interesting  history,  and  though  Audu- 
bon's  occupancy  was  brief,  it  affected,  as  we  shall  see, 
his  whole  after-life. 

Audubon  thought  nothing  of  walking  to  and  from 
Philadelphia  when  no  conveyance  was  at  hand,  but  to- 
day the  railroad  brings  the  traveler  within  a  mile  and 
a  half  of  his  old  farm.  Not  far  to  the  south,  beyond 
the  present  railway  station  of  Protectory,  lies  Valley 
Forge  and  the  wooded  hills  where  Washington's  ragged 
veterans  passed  in  log  huts  the  ever  memorable  winter  of 
1777-8.  Audubon  fancied  that  his  father  had  made  the 
acquaintance  of  General  Washington  at  that  date,  but 
this  was  eleven  years  before  the  place  had  come  into  the 
possession  of  his  family,  and  at  that  time  Captain  Audu- 

*"Mill  Grove"  farm  is  in  Montgomery  County,  twenty-four  miles 
northwest  of  Philadelphia,  in  the  town  known,  after  1823,  as  Shannonville, 
but  in  1899  rechristened  "Audubon;"  Norristown  is  five  miles  to  the  east. 

TMr.  William  H.  Wetherill  of  Philadelphia,  whose  hospitality  I  have 
enjoyed  and  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  many  interesting  facts  and 
records  pertaining  to  "Mill  Grove."  Samuel  Wetherill,  Mr.  W.  H. 
Wetherill's  grandfather,  was  one  of  the  first  to  bring  "black  rock,"  or  coal, 
from  Reading  to  Philadelphia.  Samuel  Wetherill,  Junior,  who  is  said  to 
have  started  the  first  woolen  mill  in  the  country  and  to  have  produced  the 
first  white  lead  made  in  the  United  States,  purchased  "Mill  Grove"  for 
the  sake  of  its  minerals  in  1813,  the  war  having  put  a  stop  to  all  importa- 
tions from  England  at  that  time.  He  actually  succeeded  in  extracting  sev- 
eral hundred  tons  of  lead  from  the  "Mill  Grove"  mines,  doing  better,  it  is 
thought,  than  any  who  preceded  or  followed  him.  Samuel  Wetherill,  Junior, 
died  in  1829,  and  was  succeeded  in  the  lead  and  drugs  industry  by  his  four 
sons,  of  whom  Samuel  Price  Wetherill  became  the  owner  of  "Mill  Grove" 
in  1833.  The  farm  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  Wetherill  family  until  1876, 
and  returned  to  them  again,  when  the  present  owner  came  into  possession, 
in  1892. 


"MI  1.  1.   CKOVK"    TX    183,5,    SMO\VIN<;    Tin:    MILLS    ox    TIIK    HANK    01     I'KKKMI.M  IMG 
CKI:I:K,  TIIK  KARMIKUSK,  AND  THK  OLD  SMKI.TINC  \VOKKS  (iirn.T  BY 
i'iii.  wi:'riu:uii.i.),  TMI:N    IN   Disrsi:. 


After  a  water-color  painting  by  C'barles  Wethcrill,  son  of  Samuel  Wetberill, 
and  uncle  of  William  H.  Wetherill,  the  present  owner  of  the  estate. 


"MILL  diiovi:      AS   IT   AI-I-KAHS  TO-DAY. 

The  alxive    from  ])hoto«i-r;ij)li  liy,  ;iii(l  this  published  by  courtesy  of, 
.Mr.    \V.'  H.    Wetherill. 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  103 

bon  was  sailing  the  seas  (see  Chapter  II,  p.  32) .  Equal- 
ly fanciful  also  was  the  idea  that  his  mother  had  once 
lived  there,  which  he  expressed  in  a  letter  (quoted  in  full 
in  Chapter  XXXIII)  written  from  New  York  on  Feb- 
ruary 10,  1842,  to  young  Spencer  F.  Baird,  at  Carlisle, 
Pennsylvania.  The  naturalist  was  assuring  his  young 
friend  that  the  slow  but  beautiful  "Little  Carlisle"  was 
to  be  preferred  to  "Great  New  York,  with  all  its  hum- 
bug, rascality,  and  immorality,"  and  added:  "It  is  now  a 
good  long  time  since  I  was  young,  and  resided  near  Nor- 
ristown  in  Pennsylvania.  It  was  then  and  is  now  a  very 
indifferent  place  as  compared  with  New  York ;  but  still 
my  heart  and  my  mind  oftentime  dwell  in  the  pleasure 
that  I  felt  there,  and  it  always  reminds  me  that  within 
a  few  miles  of  that  village,  my  Mother  did  live." 

The  soil  of  this  farm  region  is  of  a  dark  red  color, 
owing  to  a  friable  shale  which  outcrops  everywhere. 
The  high,  wooded  bank  of  the  Perkioming  abounds  in 
caves,  scooped  out  by  the  hand  of  nature  or  man,  as 
well  as  in  great  pits  and  shafts,  for  deep  down' under  its 
shale,  "Mill  Grove"  was  rich  in  minerals,  particularly 
the  sulphide  of  lead,  associated  with  copper  and  zinc,  to 
reach  which  many  excavations  have  been  made.  The 
lead  mines  of  this  farm  are  said  to  have  been  famous 
in  Revolutionary  times,  and  have  been  worked  sporad- 
ically for  a  hundred  years ;  if  traditions  are  trustworthy, 
many  a  winged  bullet  that  laid  a  Red-coat  low  in  the 
War  of  Independence  was  a  messenger  from  "Mill 
Grove."  In  some  of  the  old  conveyances,  which  go 
back  to  the  time  of  Penn,  the  place  was  commonly  desig- 
nated as  the  "Mill  Grove  Mines  Farm."  It  is  recorded 
that  the  original  tract  of  two  thousand  acres,  extending 
from  the  Schuylkill  to  the  Perkioming  as  far  as  the 
mouth  of  Skippack  Creek,  was  sold  to  Tobias  Collett  by 


104       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

William  Penn  in  1699  for  fifteen  shillings.  We  shall 
soon  see  that  the  mineral  wealth  which  "Mill  Grove" 
was  supposed  to  hide  beneath  its  rugged  slopes  was  a 
source  of  no  little  trouble  to  the  Audubons,  the  Roziers, 
and  their  successors  for  many  a  year. 

At  the  foot  of  the  declivity  towards  the  west,  half 
hidden  by  foliage,  stood  a  picturesque  stone  mill,  at  a 
point  where  a  solid  rampart  had  been  thrown  across  the 
stream  to  divert  its  power  to  the  use  of  man.  Hard  by 
was  the  miller's  house,  which  antedates  the  mansion, 
and  which  was  built  and  first  occupied  by  James  Mor- 
gan, who  came  into  possession  of  the  property  in  1749. 
It  was  this  old  mill  site,  originally  distinct  from  the 
farm,  that  gave  the  name  to  the  place.  Behind  the 
gristmill  an  extensive  sawmill,  built  over  the  mill  race, 
was  also  in  operation.  Today  the  dam  is  broken 
through,  and  the  great  mill  wheel  of  wood  and  iron, 
twelve  feet  in  diameter  and  fifteen  feet  wide,  has  come 
to  rest  after  turning  for  more  than  a  century. 

Like  the  mill,  the  original  house  on  the  hilltop  was 
built  of  rough-hewn  native  stone,  which  is  brown  or 
red  and  very  hard.  It  consists  of  two  stories,  with  cen- 
tral hall,  and  a  curiously  divided  attic  with  dormer  win- 
dows, which  Audubon  is  said  to  have  converted  into  a 
museum.  A  marble  slab  in  the  south  gable  bears  the 
date  of  1762;  an  addition  of  the  same  rough  stone  was 
built  on  the  north  side,  but  at  a  considerably  lower  level, 
in  1763,  and  the  commemorative  tablet  in  this  instance 
bears  the  initials  "  J.  M.,"  proving  that  the  construction 
of  the  buildings  of  "Mill  Grove"  was  due  to  the  old 
miller,  James  Morgan.  The  interior,  with  its  odd  chim- 
iey-corner,  low  ceilings,  bold  fireplace  and  hand-wrought 
iron-work,  bears  witness  to  a  time  when  honest,  substan- 
tial construction  and  pride  in  workmanship  received  the 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  105 

first  consideration.  The  present  owner  of  "Mill  Grove" 
has  added  attractive  porches  at  the  front  and  back. 
Ampelopsis  climbs  over  the  walls,  which  are  shaded  by 
handsome  trees ;  one  of  these,  a  fine  black  walnut  at  the 
easterly  porch,  which  in  August  bore  its  great  green 
balls  in  full  clusters,  must  have  been  vigorous  in  Audu- 
bon's  day,  and  possibly  suggested  the  introduction  of 
sprays  of  this  full-fruited  tree  into  some  of  his  plates. 

While  on  a  visit  from  Santo  Domingo  in  1789,  con- 
cerned with  his  business  interests,  Captain  Audubon 
spent  some  time  in  Philadelphia.  On  March  28,  1789, 
he  purchased  the  "Mill  Grove"  property,  at  that  time 
consisting  of  284!/2  acres  of  land,  mansion  house,  mill, 
barns,  furniture,  tools  and  live  stock,  from  Henry  Au- 
gustin  Prevost  8  and  his  wife,  for  the  sum  of  2,300  Eng- 
lish pounds,  in  gold  and  silver.  He  never  lived  there, 
and  that  he  never  intended  to  make  it  his  immediate  resi- 
dence is  shown  by  the  fact  that  in  less  than  a  fortnight 
he  leased  the  farm  in  its  entirety,  as  already  noticed,  to 
its  former  owner,  and  gave  him  a  mortgage  which  stood 
for  seventeen  years.9 

8  In  1761  James  Morgan,  the  first  miller  and  builder,  conveyed  one-half 
of  the  mill  site  of  five  acres  to  Roland  Evans,  who  came  into  possession 
of  the  other  half,  with  the  adjoining  farm,  in  1771;  the  property  was 
sold  to  Governor  John  Penn  in  1776;  it  passed  to  Samuel  C.  Morris  in 
1784,  and  to  the  Prevosts  in  1786. 

•The  lease,  which  was  drawn  up  in  English,  April  10,  1789,  reads  in 
part  as  follows:  "This  indenture,  made  on  the  tenth  Day  of  April  in 
the  Year  of  our  Lord,  One  thousand  Seven  hundred  &  Eighty  nine,  Be- 
tween John  Audubon,  of  the  Island  of  St.  Domingo,  Gentleman,  now 
being  in  the  City  of  Philadelphia,  of  the  one  party,  and  Augustine 
Prevost.  .  .  ."  The  lease  included  the  messuages,  grist  mills,  saw  mills, 
plantation  and  tract  of  land,  which  is  described,  tools,  implements,  stock, 
and  furniture  of  the  mills  and  farm,  and  was  drawn  for  one  year;  it 
was  signed  in  the  presence  of  Miers  Fisher,  agent  and  attorney  for  Jean 
Audubon. 

In  the  inventory  were  included  one  windmill,  one  pair  of  scales,  with 
weights  of  56,  28  and  7  pounds,  "skreen,"  four  bolting  cloths,  two  hoisting 
tubs,  and  one  large  screw  and  circle  for  raising  the  millstones.  This  lease 
was  renewed  in  October,  1790,  when  Jean  Audubon,  who  was  then  living 


106       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Young  Audubon  lived  at  "Mill  Grove"  from  the  win- 
ter of  1804  to  the  spring  of  1805,  and  again  for  a  few 
months  in  the  summer  of  1806,  the  year  of  its  final  sale 
by  the  Audubons  and  Roziers  (see  p.  148).  In  his 
journal  of  1820  the  naturalist  wrote  that  his  father  had 
once  the  honor  of  being  presented  to  General  Washing- 
ton, and  also  to  Major  Crogan,  of  Kentucky,  "who  was 
particularly  well  acquainted  with  him."  Jean  Audubon 
left  at  "Mill  Grove"  oil  portraits  of  himself  and  of 
Washington,  both  by  an  inferior  American  artist  named 
Polk,10  and  it  is  probable  that  the  one  of  himself  was 
painted  while  he  was  at  Philadelphia  in  the  spring  of 
1789;  the  drawing  is  hard  and  flat,  but  the  appearance 
of  the  face  clearly  indicates  a  man  past  middle  life,  and 
Captain  Audubon  had  then  reached  his  forty-fifth  year. 

Young  Audubon,  we  may  be  sure,  lost  no  time  in 
exploring  the  resources  of  this  fine  estate,  where  every 
bird,  tree  and  flower  came  to  him  as  a  new  discovery. 
In  following  the  Perkioming  above  the  mill  dam  he 
found  a  cave,  carved  out  of  the  rocks,  as  he  thought,  by 
nature's  own  hand,  which  was  a  favorite  haunt  of  the 
unpretentious  but  friendly  pewees,  the  first  American 
birds  to  attract  his  serious  attention.  So  delighted  was 
the  youthful  naturalist  that  he  decided  to  make  the  pe- 
wees' cave  his  study;  thither  accordingly  he  brought  his 
books,  pencils  and  paper,  and  there  made  his  first  studies 
of  American  bird  life,  in  the  spring  of  1804,  in  the  third 

at  Nantes,  agreed  to  keep  the  house  in  good  repair  from  that  time  onward. 
It  was  the  Prevost  mortgage  that  Miers  Fisher  paid  but  forgot  to  cancel 
(see  Vol.  I,  p.  122) ;  it  was  finally  cleared  up  by  Dacosta  in  October,  1806. 

Miers  Fisher's  Philadelphia  residence,  called  "Ury,"  which  Audubon 
often  visited,  was  near  Fox  Chase,  now  in  the  Twenty-third  Ward.  See 
Witmer  Stone,  Cassinia,  No.  xvii  (Philadelphia,  1913). 

10  For  a  photograph  of  this  portrait  of  Lieutenant  Audubon  here  repro- 
duced, I  am  indebted  to  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon;  the  originals  of  both 
portraits  are  now  in  possession  of  Auduhon's  granddaughter,  Mrs.  Morris 
F.  Tyler. 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  107 

year  of  the  presidency  of  Thomas  Jefferson.  It  was 
early  in  the  season  when  Audubon  chanced  upon  this 
quiet  retreat;  the  buds  were  swelling  and  maples  had 
already  burst  into  bloom,  but  snow  still  lingered  in 
patches  through  the  woods,  and  the  air  was  piercing  chill. 
The  pewees  were  not  yet  at  home,  but  one  of  their  nests, 
fashioned  of  mud  and  finest  moss,  was  fixed  above  the 
vaulted  entrance;  their  coming  was  not  long  delayed, 
and  Audubon,  marking  the  very  night  or  day's  dawn 
when  the  first  pewee  arrived,  saw  them  beginning  to  re- 
store their  old  home  on  the  tenth  of  April. 

Strange  to  say,  almost  at  that  very  time  another  pio- 
neer in  American  ornithology,  Alexander  Wilson,  who 
will  enter  this  history  later,  was  teaching  a  rough  coun- 
try school  at  Gray's  Ferry,  Kingsessing,  also  on  the 
Schuylkill,  and  not  over  twenty-five  miles  away. 
Though  Audubon's  early  studies  were  very  desultory, 
both  naturalists  began  their  observations  at  about  the 
same  time,  for  on  June  1,  1803,  Wilson  wrote  to  a 
friend  that  many  pursuits  had  engaged  his  attention 
since  leaving  Scotland  in  1794,  and  that  then  he  was 
"about  to  make  a  collection  of  all  our  finest  birds." 

It  must  be  set  down  to  Audubon's  credit  that  in  the 
little  cave  on  the  banks  of  the  Perkioming,  in  April, 
1804,  he  made  the  first  "banding"  experiment  on  the 
young  of  an  American  wild  bird.  Little  could  he  or  any 
one  else  then  have  thought  that  one  hundred  years  later 
a  Bird  Banding  Society  would  be  formed  in  America  to 
repeat  his  test  on  a  much  wider  scale,  in  order  to  gather 
exact  data  upon  the  movements  of  individuals  of  all 
migratory  species  in  every  part  of  the  continent.  After 
a  few  trials,  "I  fixed,"  said  he,  "a  light  silver  thread  on 
the  leg  of  each,  loose  enough  not  to  hurt  the  part,  but 
so  fastened  that  no  exertions  of  theirs  could  remove  it." 


108       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  the  following  spring  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  catch- 
ing several  pewees  on  their  nests  farther  up  the  creek, 
and  of  "finding  that  two  of  them  had  a  little  ring  on  the 
leg,"  proving  that  the  young  of  a  migratory  bird,  steer- 
ing by  the  "compass"  which  is  carried  in  its  brain,  did 
sometimes  return  to  its  home  region,  if  not  to  the  actual 
cradle  or  home  site. 

Across  the  Philadelphia  road,  which  today  leads  to 
the  little  railway  station,  and  not  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  mile  from  Audubon's  farmhouse,  stood  another  but 
more  pretentious  mansion  of  the  Colonial  era,  called 
"Fatland  Ford,"  pertaining  to  an  extensive  farm  of 
that  name  which  was  noted  for  the  fertility  of  its  alluvial 
acres.  A  road  from  the  present  village  of  Audubon  to 
the  Schuylkill  River  and  the  ford  runs  through  the  "Fat- 
lands  of  Egypt,"  as  the  most  productive  parts  of  this 
old  farm  were  then  called.  From  the  house  could  be  seen 
the  camping  grounds  of  the  Revolutionary  soldiers, 
and  James  Vaux,  its  owner  and  builder,  is  said  to  have 
entertained  General  Howe  at  breakfast  and  to  have 
shown  him  the  room  which  General  Washington,  his 
guest  of  the  previous  day,  had  left  just  in  time  to  avoid 
an  introduction. 

Shortly  before  Audubon  reached  "Mill  Grove," 
William  Bake  well,  an  Englishman  who  had  emigrated 
to  New  Haven  in  1802,  bought  this  farm,  and  with  his 
wife  and  family  took  possession  in  the  winter  or  spring 
of  1804.11  Of  the  six  Bakewell  children,  the  two  eldest, 
Lucy  Green  and  Thomas  Woodhouse,  were  but  three 
years  younger  than  the  naturalist.  The  senior  Bake- 
well,  said  Audubon,  called  at  "Mill  Grove"  to  pay  his 
respects,  but  being  then  from  home,  and  having  brought 
with  him  a  Frenchman's  dislike  for  everything  English, 

"See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  99. 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  109 

he  failed  to  respond.  In  the  autumn,  however,  when 
grouse  had  become  plentiful  in  the  woods,  a  chance 
meeting  brought  them  together,  and  young  Audubon, 
who  was  a  great  admirer  of  his  neighbor's  expert  marks- 
manship and  well  trained  dogs,  duly  apologized  for  his 
neglect  and  forthwith  paid  a  visit  to  "Fatland  Ford." 

We  shall  let  the  naturalist  tell  in  his  own  words  of  his 
first  meeting  with  the  young  woman  who  afterwards 
became  his  wife: 

Well  do  I  recollect  the  morning,  and  may  it  please  God  that 
I  may  never  forget  it,  when  for  the  first  time  I  entered  Mr. 
BakewelPs  dwelling.  It  happened  that  he  was  absent  from 
home,  and  I  was  shown  into  a  parlor  where  only  one  young  lady 
was  snugly  seated  at  her  work  by  the  fire.  She  rose  on  my 
entrance,  offered  me  a  seat,  and  assured  me  of  the  gratifica- 
tion her  father  would  feel  on  his  return,  which,  she  added,  would 
be  in  a  few  moments  as  she  would  despatch  a  servant  for  him. 
Other  ruddy  cheeks  and  bright  eyes  made  their  transient  ap- 
pearance but,  like  spirits  gay,  soon  vanished  from  my  sight ; 
and  there  I  sat,  my  gaze  riveted,  as  it  were,  on  the  young  girl 
before  me,  who,  half  working,  half  talking,  essayed  to  make 
the  time  pleasant  to  me.  Oh !  may  God  bless  her !  It  was  she, 
my  dear  sons,  who  afterward  became  my  beloved  wife,  and  your 
mother. 

When  Mr.  Bakewell  returned,  his  daughter,  Lucy, 
presided  at  the  tea  that  was  served,  and  Audubon  re- 
ceived his  first  experience  of  hospitality  in  the  English 
style,  that  was  to  be  repeated  in  Britain  at  a  later  day 
on  a  more  lavish  scale.  A  hunting  expedition  was  ar- 
ranged and  the  men  started  out  at  once.  Festivities  of 
various  sorts,  and,  later,  skating  parties,  became  the 
order  of  the  day,  and  it  was  not  long  before  hospitali- 
ties were  exchanged,  when  Audubon,  having  secured, 


110       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

with  the  aid  of  his  tenant's  son,  as  many  partridge  as 
possible,  had  the  whole  Bake  well  family  to  dinner  under 
his  roof  at  "Mill  Grove." 

Audubon's  choice  of  a  wife,  thus  quickly  made, 
marked  a  turning-point  in  his  career,  and  the  curious 
fact  remains  that  while  he  might  have  ransacked  the 
country  from  Florida  to  Maine,  as  he  afterwards  re- 
peatedly did  in  his  search  after  birds,  and  woefully  blun- 
dered, the  woman  who  by  her  sterling  qualities  of  mind 
and  heart  was  the  one  to  recognize  and  call  forth  the 
best  that  was  in  him,  should  have  been  placed  by  circum- 
stances close  by  his  door.  Whatever  the  world  has 
ever  owed  to  Audubon  is  a  debt  due  to  Lucy  Bake  well, 
for  every  leaf  of  oak  that  is  plaited  for  his  brow,  another 
of  lavender  should  be  twined  for  hers. 

During  this  gay  but  brief  period  of  his  life,  Audubon 
has  described  himself  as  inordinately  fond  of  dress,  often 
cutting,  as  he  said,  an  absurd  figure  by  shooting  in 
black  satin  breeches  and  silk  stockings,  and  wearing  the 
best  shirts  which  the  Philadelphia  market  could  afford ; 
he  took  pride,  he  adds,  in  riding  the  best  horse  that  he 
could  procure,  and  in  having  his  guns  and  fishing  tackle 
of  the  most  expensive  and  ornate  description.  "Not  a 
ball,"  he  said,  "a  skating  match,  a  house  or  riding  party 
took  place  without  me." 

While  freely  acknowledging  his  follies  at  this  time, 
he  was  able  to  say  that  he  was  addicted  to  no  vices.  His 
usual  custom  was  to  rise  with  the  dawn,  when  his  bird 
studies  would  begin,  in  the  early  hours  which  are  best 
for  this  purpose.  According  to  his  own  account,  Audu- 
bon was  extremely  abstemious  in  his  youth,  for  he  de- 
clared that  he  had  lived  on  fruits,  vegetables  and  milk, 
with  only  an  occasional  indulgence  in  game  and  fish,  and 
that  he  had  not  swallowed  a  single  glass  of  wine  or 


Mil. I.    GROVE       FARMHOUSE,    WEST    FROXT,    FACTXG    PERK1OMIXG    CREEK. 


'FATLAND   FORD,     THE   GIRLHOOD    IIO.-ME   OF    i.rc.  v    it  \KI:\\  1:1.1.   AI  ni  HON. 
This  ;uul  tin-  ;ibovc  nftcr  photographs  of  August   l(i.  l!)ll. 


LIFE  AT  "MILL  GROVE"  111 

spirits  until  his  wedding  day.  This  was  the  more  re- 
markable in  a  youth  coming  from  a  country  which  flowed 
with  good  wine,  where  school  children  are  still  served 
with  watered  wine  for  lunch,  and  where  the  cooks,  as 
Goldsmith  believed,  could  concoct  seven  different  dishes 
out  of  a  nettle-top,  and  who,  if  they  had  enough 
butcher's  meat  (a  want  that  has  since  been  abundantly 
supplied),  would  be  the  best  purveyors  in  the  world. 
Audubon  attributed  his  iron  constitution  to  this  simple 
regimen,  which  had  been  followed,  he  said,  from  his 
earliest  recollection,  though  he  admitted  that  while  in 
France  it  was  extremely  annoying  to  all  about  him; 
for  this  reason  he  would  not  dine  out  when  his  peculiar 
habits  were  likely  to  be  the  subject  of  unpleasant  com- 
ment. To  follow  this  account  of  himself: 

Pies,  puddings,  eggs,  milk  and  cream,  was  all  I  cared  for 
in  the  way  of  food,  and  many  a  time  I  have  robbed  my  ten- 
ant's wife,  Mrs.  Thomas,  of  the  cream  intended  to  make  butter 
for  the  Philadelphia  market.  .  .  .  All  this  time  I  was  as  fair 
and  rosy  as  a  girl,  though  as  strong,  indeed  stronger  than  most 
young  men  .  .  .  and  why  have  I  thought  a  thousand  times, 
should  I  not  have  kept  to  that  delicious  mode  of  living,  and  why 
should  not  mankind  in  general  be  more  abstemious  than  man- 
kind is?12 

William  GifFord  Bakewell,  a  younger  brother  of 
Lucy,  has  left  this  interesting  record  of  a  visit  paid  to 
"Mill  Grove"  in  the  summer  of  1806: 

Audubon  took  me  to  his  house  where  he  and  his  companion, 
Rozier,  resided,  with  Mrs.  Thomas,  for  an  attendant.  On  en- 
tering his  room,  I  was  astonished  and  delighted  to  find  that  it 
was  turned  into  a  museum.  The  walls  were  festooned  with  all 

u  For  this  and  the  preceding  quotation,  see  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon 
and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i,  pp.  18  and  27. 


112       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

kinds  of  birds'  eggs,  carefully  blown  out  and  strung  on  a 
thread.  The  chimney-piece  was  covered  with  stuffed  squirrels, 
racoons,  and  opossums ;  and  the  shelves  around  were  likewise 
crowded  with  specimens,  among  which  were  fishes,  frogs,  snakes, 
lizards,  and  other  reptiles.  Besides  these  stuffed  varieties, 
many  paintings  were  arrayed  on  the  walls,  chiefly  of  birds. 
He  had  great  skill  in  stuffing  and  preserving  animals  of  all 
sorts.  He  had  also  a  trick  in  training  dogs  with  great  per- 
fection, of  which  art  his  famous  dog,  Zephyr,  was  a  wonder- 
ful example.  He  was  an  admirable  marksman,  an  expert  swim- 
mer, a  clever  rider,  possessed  of  great  activity,  prodigious 
strength,  and  was  notable  for  the  elegance  of  his  figure  and 
the  beauty  of  his  features,  and  he  aided  nature  by  a  careful  at- 
tendance to  his  dress.  Besides  other  accomplishments  he  was 
musical,  a  good  fencer,  danced  well,  and  had  some  acquain- 
tance with  legerdemain  tricks,  worked  in  hair,  and  could  plait 
willow  baskets. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

DACOSTA  AND  THE  "MILL  GROVE"  MINE 

Advent  of  a  new  agent  at  "Mill  Grove"— Dacosta  becomes  guardian  to 
young  Audubon  and  exploits  a  neglected  lead  mine  on  the  farm — 
Correspondence  of  Lieutenant  Audubon  and  Dacosta — Quarrel  with 
Dacosta — Audubon's  return  to  France. 

If  young  Audubon  was  playing  the  role  of  a  prodigal 
son  at  the  "Mill  Grove"  farm,  which  in  a  certain  sense 
was  doubtless  true,  an  episode  soon  occurred  which  put 
a  check  to  his  carefree  existence.  Not  long  after  the 
naturalist  had  arrived,  William  Thomas,  the  tenant, 
called  his  attention  to  the  lead-ore  deposits,  which  he 
thought  had  been  discovered  by  a  Mr.  Gilpin  in  1791, 
and  the  news  of  this  prospect  was  promptly  communi- 
cated to  the  elder  Audubon  in  France.  Though  the 
presence  of  this  mineral  at  "Mill  Grove"  had  been 
known,  as  we  have  seen,  at  a  much  earlier  day,  its  redis- 
covery excited  great  interest,  and  may  have  been  a  factor 
of  influence  in  the  steps  which  were  soon  to  be  taken.  It 
should  be  noticed,  however,  that  before  May,  1803,  a 
young  Frenchman  from  Nantes,  bearing  the  Portuguese 
name  of  Francis  Dacosta,  had  preceded  young  Audubon 
to  "Mill  Grove,"  and  apparently  had  acquired  at  that 
time  a  certain  interest  in  the  farm.1  Dacosta  soon  suc- 

1  In  Dacosta's  final  statement  of  his  account,  which  was  disputed,  car- 
ried into  court,  and  eventually  settled  by  arbitration  at  Philadelphia,  on 
August  1,  1807,  these  items  occur:  "Omitted,  $300.00,  paid  by  Francis 
Dacosta  to  Miers  Fisher,  on  May  24,  1803;"  and  "Ditto  $176.67,  the  pro- 
portion of  Francis  Dacosta  in  the  rent  of  the  first  year,  which  has  not 
been  paid  to  him."  (See  Appendix  I,  Document  lla;  MSS.  in  possession 
of  Mr.  Welton  A.  Rozier.) 

113 


114       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ceeded  Miers  Fisher  as  Jean  Audubon's  agent,  and 
becoming  enthusiastic  over  the  lead  mine,  was  anxious  to 
exploit  it.  Acting  also  upon  the  senior  Audubon's  re- 
quest, he  assumed  a  sort  of  guardianship  over  the  son. 
Dacosta  began  to  dig  for  ore  in  the  following  year. 
News  of  his  enterprise  spread  rapidly,  and  this  long 
neglected  mine  was  heralded  in  the  newspapers  as  "one 
of  the  first  discoveries  yet  made  in  the  United  States."2 
On  December  15,  1804,  Dacosta  purchased  a  one-half 
undivided  interest  in  "Mill  Grove,"3  giving,  as  we  be- 
lieve, a  mortgage,  and  hoping  to  pay  for  his  share  out 
of  the  profits  of  the  lead  mine.  Thereafter  for  about 
two  years  he  continued  to  conduct  the  farm  and  develop 
the  mine,  upon  the  basis  of  a  one-half  interest,  in  addi- 

It  seems  probable  that  Dacosta  was  sent  to  this  country  by  Lieutenant 
Audubon  to  act  as  his  agent  for  the  disposition  of  "Mill  Grove,"  and  to 
succeed  Miers  Fisher  in  the  conduct  of  his  business  aifairs.  Interest  in 
the  neglected  and  forgotten  mine  may  have  diverted  them  from  their 
original  plans. 

3  The  following  notice,  copied  from  Relf's  Gazette,  appeared  in  the 
New  York  Herald  for  Saturday,  November  17,  1804- : 

"The  lead  mine  discovered  on  Perkiomen  creek,  in  Montgomery  county, 
Pennsylvania,  the  property  of  Francis  Dacosta,  has  been  lately  opened,  and 
attended  with  great  success.  The  vein  proves  to  be  a  regular  one,  and 
of  long  continuance.  Its  course  is  N.N.E.;  its  direction  is  nearly  per- 
pendicular, and  its  thickness  from  one  foot  to  15  inches.  Two  tons  of 
that  beautiful  ore  were  raised  in  a  few  hours,  and  one  ton  more  at 
least  was  left  in  the  bottom  on  the  pit,  which  is  yet  but  nine  feet  deep. 
From  the  situation  of  this  mine,  its  nearness  to  navigation  and  market, 
its  very  commanding  height,  its  richness  in  metal,  and  the  large  scale  it 
forms  on;  it  is  thought  by  judges  to  be  one  of  the  first  discoveries  yet 
made  in  the  U.  S. 

"From  the  analysis  made  of  100  parts,  it  contains: 

Oxyd  of  lead    85 

Oxyd  of  iron   1 

Sulphuric  acid  13 

Water 1 

100 
"The  lead  being  coupelled,  has  proved  to  contain  2y2  oz.  fine  silver  to 

100,  which  is  nearly  3  dollars  worth  of  that  metal." 

8  For  the  sum  of  31,000  francs,  or  $6,200,  a  slight  advance  on  the  cost 

to  Jean  Audubon,  when  he  had  taken  over  the  farm  fifteen  years  before 

(see  Vol.  I,  p.  105). 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  115 

tion  to  a  small  salary.4  In  case  the  mine  proved  a  suc- 
cess, it  was  understood  that  young  Audubon  was  to 
be  taken  into  the  business  and  thus  obtain  a  means  of 
self-support. 

Dacosta  was  at  first  averse  to  forming  a  company,  but 
the  Quaker  tenant,  William  Thomas,  who  caught  the 
fever,  and  who  was  thought  to  possess  more  knowledge 
of  the  mine  than  he  was  ready  to  divulge,  seems  to 
have  been  taken  conditionally  into  the  partnership.  Da- 
costa made  full  reports  of  his  progress  to  the  old  sailor 
at  Coueron,  who  came  regularly  to  Nantes  to  send  back 
to  America  his  well  considered  answers  and  candid  ad- 
vice. Dacosta  also  called  persistently  for  money,  but 
as  Lieutenant  Audubon  was  unable  to  meet  these  de- 
mands, he  applied  to  his  friend  Frai^ois  Rozier,  a 
wealthy  merchant  at  Nantes,  to  supply  the  needed  capi- 
tal. Rozier  invested  16,000  francs,  and  to  complicate 
matters  took  a  mortgage  upon  one-half  of  the  value  of 
"Mill  Grove,"  in  which  the  earlier  proprietor,  John 
Augustin  Prevost,  as  well  as  Francis  Dacosta,  was  also 
interested.  Jean  Audubon,  Dacosta  and  Rozier  thus 
became  partners  in  an  enterprise  which  seems  to  have 
swallowed  up  all  of  the  money  which  was  advanced  and 
never  to  have  made  any  substantial  returns. 

The  eventual  failure  of  the  lead  mine  must  be  at- 
tributed in  part  to  the  high  cost  of  materials,  as  well 
as  to  the  expense  involved  in  uncovering  the  ore,  a 
difficulty  which  all  later  exploiters  seem  to  have  found 
insuperable.  Dacosta  also  discovered  that  the  manage- 


4  The  following  item  appears  in  Dacosta's  final  account:  "To  com- 
pensation claimed  by  Francis  Dacosta  for  making  up  half  of  his  expenses, 
in  managing  the  mining  works,  the  mill-repairs,  and  taking  up  the  forma- 
tion of  a  company  during  two  years  of  constant  cares,  troubles,  and 
loss  of  time,  at  300  dollars  a  year— $600.00."  (From  statement  of  dis- 
puted claim;  see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  168.) 


116       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ment  of  his  youthful  charge  was  quite  as  difficult  as 
making  a  success  of  the  mine.  His  grievances  on  this 
score  were  duly  reported  at  Coueron,  and  if  he  was 
really  trying  to  carry  out  the  instructions  which  came 
from  France,  it  was  perhaps  no  wonder  that  he  received 
the  undisguised  contempt  of  his  rebellious  pupil.  How 
just  the  naturalist's  charges  against  his  hated  tutor 
may  have  been,  will  be  considered  in  the  sequel,  but 
Lieutenant  Audubon's  letters,5  to  be  given  presently  at 
length,  clearly  show  that  in  spite  of  the  strained  rela- 
tions which  later  ensued,  Dacosta  continued  to  enjoy  his 
confidence  for  some  time  after  young  Audubon's  return 
to  France  in  1805.  The  more  serious  troubles  that  fol- 
lowed seem  to  have  arisen  from  entanglements  into 
which  all  were  later  drawn. 

In  the  first  two  letters  to  be  given,  but  the  third  and 
fourth  of  the  series,  Jean  Audubon  refers  particularly 
to  "Mill  Grove"  and  the  prospective  mine,  and  to  the 
proposed  marriage  of  his  son  to  Lucy  Bakewell,  con- 
cerning which  he  was  reluctant  to  give  his  consent  for 
reasons  which  he  specifies  at  length;  his  sanction  was 
in  fact  withheld  until  the  young  man  was  on  the  road  to 
self-support  two  years  later. 

Jean  Audubon  to  Francis  Dacosta 

[NANTES,  1804-5] 

I  told  you  to  sell  to  W.  Thomas  the  portion  on  the  other 
side  .  .  .  but  your  letter  of  the  27th  of  September  with  that 

5  For  copies  of  a  part  of  the  Audubon-Dacosta  correspondence,  which 
is  perhaps  half  of  what  exists  but  all  that  it  was  possible  to  obtain,  I 
am  indebted  to  Monsieur  Lavigne.  The  first  letter,  the  present  copy  of 
which  is  incomplete,  was  evidently  written  in  the  winter  of  1804-5. 
Lieutenant  Audubon,  who  at  this  time  was  sixty-one  years  old,  was  living 
at  Coueron,  but  came  to  Nantes  to  conduct  his  correspondence.  All 
the  letters  were  carefully  transcribed  in  a  separate  copybook,  and  are 
here  translated  as  literally  as  possible  from  the  French. 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  117 

of  Mr.  Miers  Fisher,  who  is  not  in  favor  of  it,  has  made  me 
change  my  mind  in  the  meantime.  If  your  plan  succeeds,  as  I 
wish  it  may,  this  part  of  the  farm  would  become  almost  in- 
dispensable for  exploitation  [of  the  mine].  Moreover,  has  not 
Mr.  W.  Thomas  intentions,  which  we  do  not  know?  Might  it 
not  be  possible  that  in  this  very  same  part  he  had  made  more 
valuable  discoveries  than  those  which  he  has  shown  us?  In 
all  these  matters,  however,  I  rely  entirely  on  the  wisdom  of 
Mr.  Miers  Fisher  and  of  yourself,  and  I  thank  you  for  your 
willingness  to  remain  in  charge  of  my  affairs,6  by  accepting 
anew  the  power  of  attorney,  which  he  sends  me  together  with 
the  indenture  to  be  signed  by  my  wife  and  by  myself  in  presence 
of  witnesses.  But  you  ask  that  this  should  be  done  before  the 
mayor  of  Nantes,  while  we  have  been  living,  since  you  departed, 
in  the  commune  of  Coueron ;  accordingly  this  will  be  taken  be- 
fore the  mayor  of  that  commune,  and  legalized  by  a  prefect  of 
the  department.  That,  I  believe,  will  fulfil  the  same  obliga- 
tions, for  should  it  be  necessary  for  my  wife  to  come  to  Nantes 
in  the  weather  that  we  are  constantly  having  it  might  cause  a 
delay  that  would  be  prejudicial  to  us.  Remember,  my  dear 
Sir,  I  expect  that  if  your  plan  succeeds,  my  son  will  find  a 
place  in  the  works,  which  will  enable  him  to  provide  for  himself, 
in  order  to  spare  me  from  expenses  that  I  can,  with  difficulty, 
support.  Your  first  letters  have  almost  persuaded  me  that  this 
so-called  mine  was  of  little  or  no  account,  but  the  arrange- 
ment that  you  have  made  with  W.  Thomas  is  so  important  that 
I  do  not  doubt  you  made  certain  of  the  value  of  the  object  be- 
fore deciding  to  grant  him  a  recompense,  which  was  to  be 
only  in  the  thing  itself.  In  this  work  we  should  then  be  making 
a  very  great  sacrifice,  and  it  would  be  a  loss.  If,  however, 
you  propose  to  forestall  the  payment  of  the  sums  that  you  owe, 
I  accept  [the  proposition]  to  be  paid  in  Philadelphia;  I  will 
reflect  upon  it,  and  will  look  into  it.  If  I  can  arrange  matters 
for  this  [plan]  with  Mr.  Dupuir,  my  next  will  be  more  explicit 


•That   is,   after  having   become   a   part   owner   of  the   "Mill   Grove" 
property. 


118       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

upon  this  subject.  My  son  speaks  to  me  about  his  marriage. 
If  you  would  have  the  kindness  to  inform  me  about  his  in- 
tended, as  well  as  about  her  parents,  their  manners,  their  con- 
duct, their  means,  and  why  they  are  in  that  country,  whether 
it  was  in  consequence  of  misfortune  that  they  left  Europe, 
you  will  be  doing  me  a  signal  service,  and  I  beg  you,  moreover, 
to  oppose  this  marriage  until  I  may  give  my  consent  to  it. 
Tell  these  good  people  that  my  son  is  not  at  all  rich,  and  that 
I  can  give  him  nothing  if  he  marries  in  this  condition. 

Jean  Audubon  to  Francis  Dacosta 

NANTES,  le  19  ventose,  an  13  9  March,  1805 
MR.  DACOSTA,  Philadelphia: 

I  have  received  at  this  very  moment  your  duplicate  of  the 
twelfth  of  November,  and  your  letter  of  December  fifth,  which  is 
not  so  favorable  for  several  reasons  as  the  one  preceding  it,  yet 
this  impels  us  to  hope  that  your  last  tunnel  will  not  be  a  de- 
serter, and  that  the  oxides  of  iron  which  are  present  will  not 
vanish  upon  further  digging ;  this,  at  least,  is  my  hope.  You  do 
well  to  make  every  effort  to  obtain  associates.  If  this  does  not 
succeed,  and  if  you  should  wish  to  work  for  our  interests,  I 
should  always  approve  of  everything  that  you  do,  since  you 
have  my  confidence.  In  this  case  I  believe  .  .  .  that  you  should 
make  the  most  urgent  repairs,  above  all  at  the  principal  house, 
before  going  there  to  live.  As  to  Mr.  W.  Thomas,  you  do 
well  to  keep  him  for  yourself  for  every  reason  that  you  give 
me,  and  I  believe  that  he  will  not  be  stubborn  about  withdrawing 
until  he  has,  or  has  not,  deserved  his  reward. 

I  am  [vexed]  Sir;  one  cannot  be  more  vexed  at  the  fact  that 
you  should  have  reason  to  complain  about  the  conduct  of  my 
son,  for  the  whole  thing,  when  well  considered,  is  due  only  to 
bad  advice,  and  lack  of  experience ;  they  have  goaded  his  self- 
esteem,  and  perhaps  he  has  been  immature  enough  to  boast  in 
the  house  to  which  he  goes,  that  this  plantation  should  fall  to 
him,  to  him  alone.  You  have  every  means  to  destroy  this  pre- 
sumption; it  is  known  at  Philadelphia  that  you  have  the  same 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  119 

rights  as  I  have,  and  that  you  are  doing  nothing  but  for  our 
mutual  advantage.  I  am  writing  to  him  on  this  subject,  for 
he  does  not  speak  of  it  to  me,  and  I  am  giving  him  the  rebuke 
that  his  indiscretion  deserves.  Read  this  letter,  and  have  the 
kindness  to  seal  it  before  delivering  it  to  him.  You  tell  me 
that  I  can  refer,  in  regard  to  his  conduct,  to  the  report  that 
Mr.  Miers  Fisher  has  given  of  it  in  his  long  letter  of  the  month 
of  September;  that,  unhappily,  I  have  not  received,  for  Mr. 
Fisher  tells  me  nothing  about  him,  neither  what  is  good  nor 
bad.  As  to  going  to  that  country,  this  seems  well  nigh  im- 
possible; to  recall  my  son  is  not  easier;  the  reasons  which  made 
me  send  him  out  [there]  still  remain.  Only  an  instant  is  needed 
to  make  him  change  from  bad  to  good ;  his  extreme  youth  and 
his  petulance  are  his  only  faults,  and  if  you  have  the  goodness 
to  give  him  the  indispensable,  he  will  soon  feel  the  necessity  of 
making  friends  with  you,  and  he  can  be  of  great  service  if  you 
use  him  for  your  own  benefit. 

It  is  necessary  then,  my  dear  Sir,  that  we  endeavor,  by 
gentleness,  to  reclaim  him  to  his  duty.  If  you  are  indulgent 
with  him,  it  will  be  I  who  should  be  under  every  obligation  to 
you.  I  hope  that  the  enclosed  letter  will  work  a  change  with 
him.  This  is  my  only  son,  my  heir,  and  I  am  old.  When  Mr. 
Miers  Fisher  shall  have  shown  my  letter  to  the  would-be  father- 
in-law,  he  will  see  that  he  is  mistaken  in  his  calculation  upon 
the  assumed  marriage  of  his  daughter,  for  if  it  should  take 
place  without  my  consent,  all  help  on  my  part  would  cease 
from  that  instant ;  this,  if  you  will  have  the  kindness,  is  what 
you  may  say  to  the  would-be  father-in-law,  that  I  do  not  wish 
my  son  to  marry  so  young. 

Your  letters  of  the  28th  of  October  and  the  12th  of  No- 
vember are  in  the  country.7  I  cannot  reply  categorically  upon 
their  contents;  I  will  examine  them,  and  will  tell  you  in  my 
next  what  I  think  about  them.  Your  family,  which  I  have 
seen,  is  well.  Our  ladies  thank  you  for  your  kind  remembrance. 
I  am.  .  .  . 

7  That  is,  at  Coueron. 


120      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

i 

When  the  preceding  letter  was  written  young  Audu- 
bon  was  on  his  way  to  France,  to  protest,  as  he  said, 
against  Dacosta's  treatment  of  him.  At  the  date  of  the 
letter  which  follows,  he  was  at  Coueron,  hunting  birds 
with  Dr.  d'Orbigny. 

Jean  Audubon  to  Francis  Dacosta 

NANTES,  14  June,  1805 
To  MR.  DACOSTA,  Philadelphia: 

I  have  received,  at  this  very  moment,  your  letter  of  the 
8th  of  April.  I  have  replied  to  your  preceding  by  duplicate. 
Like  yourself  I  am  greatly  astonished  that  you  should  not  have 
received  the  contracts  which  I  forwarded  to  you  at  once.  I 
have  reserved  copies  of  these  papers,  which  I  have  literally 
copied. 

If  I  had  the  least  idea  that  they  would  not  reach  you,  and 
that  an  accident  had  befallen  the  ship,  I  should  forward  them 
in  duplicate,  but  as  this  boat,  at  the  time  of  its  departure,  was 
long  delayed  by  the  embargoes  as  well  as  by  bad  weather,  I 
am  persuaded  that  this  is  the  sole  cause,  and  that  they  will 
have  reached  you  since. 

You  are  about  to  appeal  to  the  supreme  court  to  prove 
your  ownership;  is  there  a  living  being  who  can  contest  it? 
If  our  deeds,  granted  in  France,  have  not  their  full  force  in 
that  country,  nothing  can  annul  them  for  us  who  are  French. 
You  shall  do  in  this  matter  what  you  like;  the  greatest  objec- 
tion is  this,  that  it  stops  your  operations ;  but  who  is  to  blame? 
It  is  due  to  distance,  and  not  to  any  negligence. 

You  say  that  you  will  do  nothing  until  you  have  these 
documents ;  if  your  intention  is  to  work  for  our  benefit,  as  you 
say  in  your  preceding,  a  company  still  being  disagreeable  [to 
you],  that  ought  not  to  stop  you ;  you  have  every  power,  [and] 
time  lost  is  irreparable.  I  am  much  annoyed  at  the  delay  that 
this  Mr.  Miers  Fisher  causes  you;  as  you  say,  he  is  an  honest 
man,  but  negligent,  and  this  in  consequence  of  his  age,  and 
absorption  in  his  great  business. 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  121 

We  now  return  to  Mr.  David  Ross,8  who  in  his  letter  tells 
a  pack  of  lies.  At  the  close  of  1789  I  presented  myself  at  his 
house  with  the  power  of  attorney  of  Mr.  Formon,9  when  we 
settled  the  business  of  the  "Count  of  Artois,"  and  the  "An- 
nette."10 There  never  has  been,  as  he  said,  any  dissolution  of 
the  partnership  between  Mr.  Formon  and  myself.  I  settled  the 
accounts  at  that  time  both  with  him  and  with  Samuel  Plais- 
ance  concerning  these  vessels,  with  the  exception  of  a  residue 
of  three  thousand  francs  which  are  due  me  from  Mr.  Edward, 
their  associate,  who  died  at  London.  When  I  asked  him  for 
his  certificates,  he  gave  me  for  excuse  that  they  were  at  the 
iron  factory  above  Richmond,  and  that  he  had  given  Mr.  For- 
mon a  private  obligation  that  he  would  be  very  glad  to  have 
an  exchange  for  the  certificates.  This  affair  has  rested  there 
ever  since,  and  according  to  his  letter  Mr.  Formon  has  taken 
out  seven  thousand,  four  hundred  dollars,  which  exceeds  his 
share  by  1,650  dollars.  If  the  estate  of  Mr.  Formon  is  not 
without  resources,  it  is  to  his  heirs  that  you  must  apply  for 
this  overdraft,  and  get  from  Mr.  David  Ross  all  that  you  can, 
for  with  such  people  one  cannot  rely  upon  getting  anything 
except  with  iron  hooks. 

The  son-in-law  of  Mr.  Formon  doubtless  will  have  found 
among  his  papers  all  that  constitutes  the  legal  basis  of  my 
portion;  his  certificates,  his  letter  of  attorney  prove  it,  and 
this  is  a  title,  and  I  believe  that  I  have  proofs  by  accounts 
current.  I  salute  you. 

•This  name  appears  as  "Host"  in  all  the  letters. 

•Member  of  the  firm  of  Audubon,  Lacroix,  Formon  &  Jacques,  en- 
gaged in  the  Santo  Domingo  trade  (see  Chapter  II,  p.  33).  In  these 
letters  the  name  usually  appears  as  "Formont." 

"Vessels  in  which  Jean  Audubon  was  personally  interested,  and  upon 
which  he  endeavored  in  vain  to  collect  the  money  and  interest  due  him 
(see  Vol.  I,  p.  34).  In  a  document  in  English,  dated  [Les  Cayes]  April  9, 
1782,  concerning  the  Annette,  of  which  Jean  Audubon  was  captain  and 
part  owner,  and  signed  by  him  and  David  Ross  &  Company,  it  is  stated 
this  vessel  was  bound  for  Nantes  with  a  cargo  of  tobacco,  in  the  purchase 
and  sale  of  which  Captain  Audubon  was  under  orders  of  Mr.  Ezekiel  Ed- 
wards of  Nantes. 


122       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Jean  Audubon  to  Francis  Dacosta 

NANTES,  £#  June,  1805 
To  MR.  DACOSTA  : 

I  have  just  received  your  letter  of  April  23,  and  hasten  to 
reply  to  it,  in  order  to  prove  to  you  that  not  one  of  yours 
has  been  neglected,  which  could  be  readily  seen  by  my  copy- 
book. I  am  not  surprised  that  at  this  time  you  have  not  re- 
ceived your  papers,  because  they  cannot  have  left  before  the 
10th  or  15th  of  last  March,  having  been  held  up  by  the  em- 
bargoes and  the  bad  weather,  as  you  will  see  by  the  date  of 
the  letters  which  accompany  them. 

They  were  entrusted  to  the  son-in-law  of  Mr.  Paulin,  and 
if  the  ship  arrives  safely  as  I  trust  it  will,  you  have  now  re- 
ceived them. 

What  negligence  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Miers  Fisher!  In 
truth  it  is  unpardonable,  to  let  the  mortgages  stand  after 
having  paid  them ! al  Will  you  then,  I  pray,  clear  this  up  for 
the  sake  of  our  mutual  peace  of  mind?  You  speak  of  repairs 
to  the  house,12  it  needs  a  complete  cover;  would  it  not  be  better 
for  me  to  send  some  slate  from  here?  This  would  perhaps  be 
less  expensive,  and  well  nigh  everlasting.  Should  you  consider 
it  advisable  I  will  send  you  some  at  once. 

I  beg  you  not  to  neglect  the  affair  of  David  Ross ;  if  you 
can  collect  this  sum,  you  will  use  it  for  our  needs.      I  am 
annoyed  that  all  these  mishaps  prevent  you  from  working;13 
be  well  persuaded  that  it  is  no  fault  of  mine,  and  that  I  am 
guilty  of  no  negligence. 

You  speak  of  my  going  to  that  country;  if  such  had  been 
my  intention  I  should  have  done  it  long  ago.  I  am  still 

II  This    was    probably    the    mortgage    which    Jean    Audubon    gave    to 
Prevost  when  "Mill  Grove"  was  purchased  in  1789,  for  in  Dacosta's  final 
account  for  1806-1807  this  item  occurs  under  October  15,  1806:    "To  the 
recorder  in  Norristown  for  entering  satisfaction  of  John  Audubon  mortgage 
to  John  Augustin  Prevost  .  .  .  $2.83." 

"The  principal  house  at  "Mill  Grove,"  which  Dacosta  was  preparing 
to  occupy. 

13  Owing  to  the  delay  in  receiving  his  legal  papers  from  France,  Dacosta 
had  threatened  to  carry  his  case  to  the  courts,  and  had  stopped  work 
at  the  mine. 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  123 

troubled  with  an  inflammation  of  the  lungs ;  and  one  ought  not 
to  be  ill  in  a  foreign  country,  where  he  does  not  receive  the  care 
that  he  enjoys  in  his  own  home.  You  ask  me  to  bring  you 
money.  .  .  .  You  know  better  than  anyone  else  what  was  my 
[financial]  position  when  I  sold  to  you;  by  that  alone  you  must 
know  how  difficult  this  would  be  for  me.  It  is  necessary  to  man- 
age so  that  our  object  suffices  us  [or  so  that  the  mine  pays  its 
way],  and  if  we  cannot  work  on  a  grand  scale,  we  must  needs 
do  the  best  with  our  affairs  on  a  lower  plane;  for  that  I  de- 
pend on  you.  I  salute  you. 

P.  S.  When  you  shall  have  my  papers  from  Mr.  Miers  Fisher, 
you  will  find  a  promissory  note  of  Mr.  Samuel  Plaisance  of 
Richmond,  for  the  business  of  the  widow  Ross.  If  there 
were  justice  there  this  sum  would  be  paid  to  me  with  the 
costs. 

The  foregoing  letters  show  that  Dacosta  had  been 
asked  to  oppose  the  proposed  marriage  of  the  younger 
Audubon  to  Lucy  Bakewell  until  consent  should  be 
given ;  that  he  was  calling  for  more  money  to  exploit  the 
lead  mine  and  was  urging  Lieutenant  Audubon  to  come 
to  America;  and  that  their  relations  were  becoming 
strained,  Dacosta,  to  prove  his  title  to  a  one-half  inter- 
est in  the  mine  and  farm,  having  threatened  to  take 
his  case  to  the  courts. 

This  mining  experiment  was  spread  over  many  years. 
Before  turning  to  the  sequel  (see  Chapter  XI),  let  us 
glance  at  the  picture  which  the  naturalist  has  left  of  his 
unsympathetic  tutor.  "Dacosta,"  he  said,  "was  intend- 
ed to  teach  me  mineralogy  and  mining  engineering,  but 
in  fact"  he  "knew  nothing  of  either;  besides  which  he 
was  a  covetous  wretch,  who  did  all  he  could  to  ruin 
my  father,  and  indeed  swindled  us  both  to  a  large 
amount.  I  had  to  go  to  France  to  expose  him  to  my 


124       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

father  to  get  rid  of  him,  which  I  fortunately  accom- 
plished at  sight  of  my  kind  parent.  A  greater  scoundrel 
than  Dacosta  never  probably  existed,  but  peace  be  with 
his  soul."  In  one  respect  only,  said  Audubon,  did  he 
receive  any  sympathy  from  his  guardian:  Dacosta  com- 
mended his  drawings  of  birds.  "One  morning,"  Audu- 
bon relates,  "when  I  was  drawing  a  figure  of  the  Ardea 
herodias  [the  great  blue  heron],  he  assured  me  that  the 
time  might  come  when  I  should  be  a  great  American  nat- 
uralist"; however  curious  it  might  appear,  he  adds,  that 
praise  "from  the  lips  of  such  a  man  should  affect  me,  I 
assure  you  that  they  had  great  weight  with  me  and  I  felt 
a  certain  degree  of  pride  in  these  words  even  then." 

To  follow  Audubon's  story  further,  not  only  did  Da- 
costa take  control  of  his  finances,  but  he  interfered  with 
his  personal  liberty,  first  by  objecting  to  his  proposed 
marriage  to  Lucy  Bake  well,  and  then  by  cutting  off  his 
stipend  when  he  rebelled.14  Audubon,  being  thorough- 
ly aroused,  determined  to  return  to  France  and  lay 
the  case  before  his  father  in  person.  With  this  end  in 
view  he  walked  to  Philadelphia,  whither  Dacosta  had 
gone,  to  demand  the  money  necessary  to  take  him  to 
Nantes.  He  was  given,  as  he  says,  what  purported  to 
be  a  letter  of  credit  to  a  Mr.  Kauman,  an  agent  and 
banker  in  New  York.  Returning  with  his  letter  to 
"Mill  Grove,"  he  then  started  on  foot  for  New  York, 
where  he  arrived  on  the  evening  of  the  third  day.  While 
there  he  stayed  at  the  house  of  Mrs.  Palmer,15  "a  lady  of 

14  In  the  light  of  the  preceding  letters,  Dacosta  would  appear  in  these 
respects  to  have  been  only  attempting  to  carry  out  his  instructions. 

"Probably  Sarah  White  Palmer,  Benjamin  BakewelFs  sister-in-law, 
and  widow  of  the  Rev.  John  Palmer,  who  at  one  time  was  associated 
with  Joseph  Priestley  in  editing  the  Theological  Repository,  an  organ  of 
the  Unitarians.  Her  son-in-law,  Thomas  W.  Pears,  was  later  a  partner  in 
Audubon's  business  ventures  at  Henderson,  Kentucky.  Her  grave  is  in 
the  Bakewell  burying  plot  at  "Fatland  Ford." 


DACOSTA  AND  THE  MINE  125 

excellent  qualities,"  who  received  him  most  kindly.  Au- 
dubon  called  promptly  upon  Benjamin  Bakewell,  for 
whom  he  was  the  bearer  of  a  letter  from  his  brother,  Wil- 
liam Bakewell,  of  "Fatland  Ford."  Instead  of  an  order 
for  money,  Kauman's  letter,  he  said,  contained  only  the 
advice  that  its  bearer  be  "arrested  and  shipped  to  Can- 
ton." Perplexed  and  bewildered  beyond  endurance, 
Audubon  said  that  for  the  first  time  he  felt  the  call  of 
murder  in  his  blood,  and  his  outraged  feelings  were  not 
assuaged  until  his  landlady,  to  whom  he  had  opened  his 
heart,  and  Mr.  Bakewell,  had  come  to  his  aid.  Having 
secured  from  this  gentleman  the  necessary  funds,  he 
bought  a  passage  in  the  ship  Hope,  which  was  then 
about  to  sail  direct  for  Nantes. 

Thanks  to  an  old  cash  account  of  William  Bakewell, 
we  can  follow  Audubon's  movements  at  this  time  fairly 
closely.  This  record  16  extends  from  January  4, 1805,  to 
April  9,  1810,  during  which  time  he  advanced  money  to 
his  future  son-in-law  and  received  credits  due  him  from 
various  sources.  He  did  the  same  for  the  young  part- 
ners when  an  association  in  business  had  been  formed 
between  Audubon  and  Rozier,  and  acted  as  their  agent 
or  attorney  after  the  sale  of  their  farm  and  their  settle- 
ment in  the  West;  as  will  be  seen  he  aided  Audubon 
very  substantially  later  when  money  was  needed  at 
Louisville  and  for  the  more  ambitious  projects  at  Hen- 
derson, in  which  his  son  was  also  interested.  This  par- 
ticular record  shows  that  he  supplied  Audubon  with 
small  sums  of  money  on  January  4  and  12,  1805,  just 
before  his  departure  from  "Mill  Grove,"  and  that  on  the 
eighteenth  of  the  same  month  he  paid  his  brother,  Ben- 
jamin Bakewell  of  New  York,  $150  on  the  young  man's 
account.  This  was  undoubtedly  the  passage  money 

"See  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  7. 


126       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

which  Audubon  had  borrowed  from  his  friend,  and  as 
the  ship  was  then  ready  to  sail,  the  date  of  his  voyage 
on  the  Hope  is  very  closely  fixed. 

After  his  vessel  had  passed  Sandy  Hook  and  was 
opposite  New  Bedford,  the  captain,  in  order,  as  he 
averred,  to  make  necessary  repairs,  ran  her  into  that 
port,  where  they  passed  a  week.  This  was  thought  to 
be  only  a  ruse  on  the  captain's  part  to  gain  time,  for, 
having  recently  married,  he  wanted  a  holiday  on  shore ; 
accordingly  he  had  ordered  a  few  holes  bored  below 
the  waterline  in  the  bows  of  his  ship.  When  they  finally 
put  to  sea  in  earnest,  they  passed  "through  an  im- 
mensity of  dead  fish  floating  on  the  surface  of  the  wa- 
ter," a  remark  which  now  recalls  stories  of  the  famous 
tilefish,  once  thought  to  be  extinct,  which  have  been 
found  floating  dead  in  vast  numbers  in  that  part  of  the 
Atlantic.  After  nineteen  days  out  the  Hope  entered 
the  Loire  and  anchored  at  Paimboeuf,  the  lower  harbor 
of  Nantes ;  this  was  in  February,  and  not  far  from  the 
eighteenth  of  that  month. 


CHAPTER   IX 

AUDUBON'S  LAST  VISIT  TO  HIS  HOME  IN  FRANCE 

Life  at  Coueron — Friendship  of  D'Orbigny — Drawings  of  French  birds — 
D'Orbigny's  troubles — Marriage  of  Rosa  Audubon — The  Du  Puigau- 
deaus — Partnership  with  Ferdinand  Rozier — Their  Articles  of  Asso- 
ciation— They  sail  from  Nantes,  are  overhauled  by  British  privateers, 
but  land  safely  at  New  York— Settle  at  "Mill  Grove." 

Reaching  his  home  at  Coueron  in  the  spring  of 
1805,  Audubon  took  his  parents  completely  by  surprise. 
He  found  his  father,  then  in  his  sixty-first  year,  still 
"hale  and  hearty,"  and  his  "chere  maman  as  fair  and 
good  as  ever."  It  was  a  time  of  momentous  events  in 
France;  Napoleon  had  placed  the  crown  upon  his  head 
but  a  few  months  before;  defeat  and  victory  followed 
in  rapid  succession.  But  this  did  not  prevent  the  young 
naturalist  from  spending  a  year  in  "the  lap  of  comfort" 
at  Nantes  and  in  the  quiet  villa  of  "La  Gerbetiere," 
where  as  usual  he  hunted  birds  and  collected  objects  of 
natural  history  of  every  sort. 

At  this  time  also  Audubon  formed  a  friendship  with 
a  young  man  after  his  own  heart,  Dr.  Charles  Marie 
d'Orbigny,  who  "with  his  young  wife  and  infant-son" 
was  then  living  near  his  home.  "The  doctor,"  he  said, 
"was  a  good  fisherman,  a  good  hunter,  and  fond  of  all 
objects  in  nature.  Together  we  searched  the  woods, 
the  fields  and  the  banks  of  the  Loire,  procuring  every 
bird  we  could,  and  I  made  drawings  of  every  one  of 
them — very  bad,  to  be  sure,  but  still  they  were  of 
assistance  to  me." 

'Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i, 
p.  39. 

127 


128       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Charles  d'Orbigny,  who  was  Audubon's  most  inti- 
mate early  friend  and  in  all  probability  his  father  in 
natural  history,  was  always  spoken  of  in  terms  of  great 
affection.  While  at  Paris  in  October,  1829,  Audubon 
learned  from  the  naturalist  Lesson  that  D'Orbigny  was 
then  in  charge  of  the  museum  at  La  Rochelle  and  that 
"his  son,  Charles,  then  twenty-one,"  whom  "he  had  held 
in  his  arms  many  times,"  was  in  the  city;  on  October  8 
he  wrote  in  his  journal:  "this  morning  I  had  great 
pleasure  in  meeting  my  godson,  Charles  d'Orbigny. 
Oh!  what  past  times  were  brought  to  my  mind."  2 

In  later  life  the  elder  D'Orbigny  seems  to  have  fallen 
on  evil  times.  He  appeared  as  a  debtor  to  Lieutenant 
Audubon's  estate,  and  the  cordial  relations  that  had 
long  existed  between  the  two  families  were  broken;  this 
is  shown  only  too  plainly  by  the  following  sharp  letter  3 
written  by  Gabriel  du  Puigaudeau  and  addressed  to  the 
doctor,  on  August  3,  1819,  when  the  family  had  become 
reduced  in  means : 

Gabriel  du  Puigaudeau  to  Charles  M.  d'Orbigny 

Your  letter  of  the  twenty-fifth  of  January  reached  me  in 
due  time.  I  am  grieved  to  see  that  you  are  annoyed  because 

2  Dr.  d'Orbigny  had  three  sons,  all  of  whom  were  born  in  Coueron: 
Alcide  Charles  Victor  in  1802,  Gaston  Edouard  in  1805,  and  Charles  in 
1806;  the  youngest  and  eldest  became  distinguished  naturalists.  So  far 
as  known,  Audubon  was  godfather  only  to  the  second,  Gaston  Edouard, 
who  according  to  the  records  of  the  Catholic  church  at  Coueron,  "was 
born  on  the  3d  day  of  the  present  [month],  the  issue  of  the  legitimate 
marriage  of  Mr.  Charles  Marie  d'Orbigny,  doctor  of  medicine,  and  of 
Anna  Pepart,"  was  christened  on  August  20,  1805,  in  the  presence  of  the 
godfather,  John  James  Audubon,  the  godmother,  Rosa  Audubon,  the 
father  and  mother,  together  with  the  "undersigned"  (Extracted  by  Monsieur 
Lavigne).  D'Orbigny  appears  as  a  witness  to  the  powers  of  attorney 
which  Jean  Audubon  and  his  wife  issued  jointly  to  their  son  and  to 
Ferdinand  Rozier  at  Coueron  in  1805  (see  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  8) 
and  on  November  20,  1806  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  153). 

8  For  copies  of  this  and  the  following  letters,  which  are  here  trans- 
lated from  the  French,  I  am  indebted  to  Monsieur  Lavigne. 


>-'.'„    .    t  ,",./:       /•' 

'  '.4 


KAIII.Y    rNI'Cltl.lSHKI)    IIHAWIXCS    (>1      IHKXtll     HIIiDS:     \lt:)Vi:,    '*LE    FRIQUKT    MALE    1)K 

BUFFON.       TIIK    SKDCK    SI'A|{||()\\  .       XO.    IS.     XK\M     XAXTX,     1805.       J.    J.    A."; 

BELOW,   "l,E  ROSSIOXOr.  1)K    M  1'H  Al  F.I.KS       I)K    Kl'FFOX — TIIK   KKDSTART. 

NO.    ->().     Xi:\H    XAXTX,    AUGUST,    1805.       J.    L.    F.    A." 

Published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y.  Jenncs. 


LAST  VISIT  TO  COUERON  129 

I  addressed  you  through  the  voice  of  the  mayor  of  the  town 
in  which  you  live,  since  I  had  not  the  honor  of  knowing  the 
mayor  any  more  than  the  enmity  which  may  exist  between  you ; 
I  was  in  duty  bound  to  find  out  where  you  were ;  I  heard  it  said 
that  Esnaudes  was  your  home  and  I  wrote  you  more  than  a 
year  ago ;  when  I  received  no  reply,  the  supposition  was  that 
I  must  have  been  misinformed.  I  wrote  to  the  mayor  of 
Esnaudes  and  he  had  the  kindness  to  reply  that  you  were  prac- 
ticing in  his  commune.  I  am  writing  to  you  under  this  cover, 
persuaded  that  my  last  will  not  have  the  same  fate  as  my  first, 
which  surely  had  not  reached  you. 

As  to  the  claim  that  Madame  Audubon  has  upon  you,  the 
different  credits  which  you  mention  are  assuredly  more  than 
enough  to  pay  the  amount,  but  with  forfeitures ;  unfortunately 
there  are  many  creditors  who  do  nothing  but  this;  Madame 
Audubon  gets  nothing,  and  finds  herself  in  straightened  cir- 
cumstances, although  her  hands  are  full  of  notes.  You  say 
that  your  creditors  can  claim  only  thirty-five  hundred  francs. 
I  have  certain  knowledge  to  the  contrary,  since  already  the 
mortgages  on  your  house  reach  nearly  three  thousand  francs, 
while  Madame  Audubon  is  your  creditor  in  the  sum  of  at  least 
sixteen  hundred  francs.  I  wish  in  business  to  be  frank,  and 
to  have  others  so  with  me.  You  say  that  you  owe  rather  those 
who  have  supplied  you  with  food;  you  are  unwilling  then  to 
recall  that  the  sums  that  the  late  Mr.  Audubon  lent  you  re- 
peatedly were  for  the  same  purpose.  You  tell  us  to  be  patient, 
and  who  have  been  more  patient  than  we  for  the  past  four 
years?  You  speak  of  reduction  of  interest;  indeed  it  is  im- 
possible that  you  should  have  thought  of  this,  or  that  we  should 
be  content  with  what  you  should  be  so  good  as  to  give  us,  and 
that  when  you  deem  it  convenient,  without  our  being  able  to 
file  a  protest.  I  leave  you  to  reflect  on  what  we  must  think  of 
this  matter,  and  I  beg  you  to  see  in  my  manner  of  writing  to 
you  the  interpretation  that  I  have  given  to  what  you  write 
yourself. 

Madame  Audubon  does  not  think  that  she  should  exact  at 
once  the  capital  in  addition  to  the  interest,  but  she  charges 


130       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

me  to  say  to  you  that,  having  a  right  at  least  to  the  interest 
accrued,  she  begs  you  to  have  that  money  paid  to  her  with  the 
least  possible  delay. 

The  following  letter  concerning  D'Orbigny's  affairs 
was  also  written  by  Gabriel  du  Puigaudeau  to  J.  Cornet 
of  Esnaudes,  on  June  26,  1819: 

Gabriel  du  Puigaudeau  to  J.  Cornet 

Your  honored  [letter]  of  the  sixteenth  was  duly  received. 
It  is  impossible  to  be  more  grateful  to  you  than  I  am  for  the 
information  that  you  have  been  kind  enough  to  give  me  about 
Mile.  Bouffard4  as  well  as  about  M.  Delouche.  I  will  use  it  to 
my  profit.  As  to  the  question  that  you  put  to  me  concerning 
M.  d'Orbigny,  I  have  the  honor  to  tell  you  that  he  has  lived 
in  the  commune  of  Vue  in  this  department,  and  was  highly 
esteemed  and  regretted  when  he  left  to  come  here.  He  lived 
here  fifteen  years  without  any  one  having  cause  to  reproach 
him  in  any  way.  He  has  always  been  very  well  regarded  and 
received  by  the  best  society  here,  and  he  carried  from  Vue  the 
regrets  of  all.  He  left  us  to  take  part  in  a  manufactory  of 
soda,  established  at  Noismoutiers,  in  the  department  of  La 
Vendee. 

?  have  had  no  news  of  him  since.  As  to  his  pecuniary  re- 
sources, I  know  him  to  have  but  one.  His  wife  had  a  house, 
at  Paimbceuf  in  this  department,  which  was  sold  three  years 
ago  to  satisfy  the  holders  of  mortgages.  This  is  all  that  I  can 
tell  you  about  them ;  he  owes  my  mother-in-law  about  fifteen 
hundred  francs  (money  received  at  different  times  from  my 
late  father-in-law),  for  which  we  have  his  notes,  but  God  only 
knows  when  we  shall  be  paid. 

As  early  as  the  autumn  of  1805,  if  not  before,  plans 
were  laid  for  getting  young  Audubon  again  safely  out 
of  France,  for  fear,  no  doubt,  that  the  remorseless  con- 

4  A  daughter  of  Catharine  Bouffard,  regarding  whom  see  Vol.  I,  p.  56. 


LAST  VISIT  TO  COUERON  131 

scription  officers  of  Napoleon  would  send  him  to  the 
war  if  he  remained.  At  that  time  Lieutenant  Audubon 
and  his  wife  issued  jointly  to  their  son  and  to  Ferdinand 
Rozier  a  power  of  attorney  for  the  conduct  of  their 
business  affairs  in  America.  Parts  only  of  this  punc- 
tilious document,  which  was  written  in  French,  have 
been  preserved,5  and  these  through  the  translation  of  a 
"notary  public  and  sworn  interpreter  of  foreign  lan- 
guages for  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania,  resi- 
dent in  Philadelphia."  The  names  of  the  grantors,  who 
signed  this  letter  on  October  21,  1805,  were  attested 
under  the  signature  and  seal  of  the  mayor  of  Coueron; 
this  official  upon  the  same  day  declared  that,  in  con- 
formity with  the  rigorous  requirements  of  the  laws  of 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  since  "no  other  act,  not  even 
a  notarial  instrument,  can  in  any  manner  supply  the 
same,"  he  had  examined  Anne  Moynet  Audubon  apart, 
when  she  admitted  that  she  perfectly  understood  the 
nature  of  the  act,  which  she  had  "signed,  sealed,  and 
delivered  of  her  own  free  will  and  accord,  without  being 
compelled  thereto  by  her  husband,  either  by  threats,  or 
by  any  other  means  of  compulsion  whatsoever."  The 
mayor's  signature  was  authenticated  three  days  later 
by  the  subprefect  of  Savenay,  and  the  formality  was 
finally  closed  by  the  attestation  of  his  signature  by  the 
prefect,  on  the  27th  of  November. 

It  was  during  this  last  visit  to  his  home  in  France 
that  Audubon's  sister,  Rosa,6  was  married  to  Gabriel 

6  See  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  8. 

•The  civil  ceremony  of  Rosa  Audubon's  marriage  was  performed 
at  the  mayor's  office  in  Coueron,  on  December  16,  1805  (le  26  frimaire,  an 
14),  when  the  bride  was  in  her  eighteenth  year;  the  contract  had  been 
drawn  on  the  12th  day  of  that  month  (le  22  frimaire,  an  14)  by  notary 
Martin  Daviais,  who  was  mayor  of  Coueron  in  the  following  year,  and  the 
religious  ceremony  was  conducted  by  the  Bishop  of  Nantes.  "The  fol- 
lowing have  assisted,"  so  reads  in  translation  the  Coueron  record,  "at 


132       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  who  was  not,  however,  as  the 
naturalist  has  stated,  either  "the  son  of  a  fallen  noble- 
man" or  his  father's  "secretary."  Du  Puigaudeau  came 
from  a  family  of  merchants  in  easy  circumstances,  and 
for  a  long  time  lived  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman 
of  leisure- — for  a  period  at  Port  Launay,  below  Coueron, 
and  later,  after  Lieutenant  Audubon's  death,  at  his  own 
villa,  "Les  Tourterelles,"  in  that  commune,  not  far  from 
"La  Gerbetiere."  His  father,  though  of  a  rich  family, 
was  not  a  "gentleman,"  that  is,  a  member  of  the  aris- 
tocracy, as  the  term  was  then  used  in  France.  Du 
Puigaudeau  was  without  any  settled  business,  but  his 
revenues,  upon  which  he  depended,  failed  not  long  after 
the  death  of  his  father-in-law.  He  and  young  Audubon 
appear  to  have  been  good  friends  for  many  years,  and 
after  the  latter's  return  to  America  they  corresponded 
to  as  late  as  1820,  when  for  some  reason  their  relations 
were  broken. 

In  the  spring  of  1806  Lieutenant  Audubon  arranged 
a  business  partnership  between  his  son  and  Ferdinand 
Rozier,  to  endure  for  nine  years,  and  also  secured  pass- 
ports for  both  to  enable  them  to  emigrate  immediately 
to  the  United  States.  To  the  same  hand  can  also  be 
traced  their  "Articles  of  Association,"  which  were 
drawn  with  the  utmost  care  and  designed  to  govern 
them  in  all  their  future  business  relations  in  the  New 
World:  these  were  signed  by  "Jean  Audubon,"  and 
"Ferdinand  Rozier,"  at  Nantes,  on  March  23,  1806. 
Moreover,  eight  days  before  they  embarked,  a  second 
and  more  elaborate  letter  of  attorney  was  issued  to 

the  marriage,  aforesaid,  on  the  side  of  the  groom,  M.  Andre  Loyen  du 
Puigaudeau,  his  brother,  and  M.  Honore  Francois  Guiraud,  his  brother- 
in-law;  by  the  side  of  the  bride,  her  father,  and  M.  Jean  Audubon,  her 
brother,  [and  these  have]  undersigned,  together  with  the  bridegroom." 
Audubon's  signature  reads  "J.  L.  J.  Audubon." 


LAST  VISIT  TO  COUERON  133 

them  jointly  by  the  Lieutenant,  his  wife,  and,  in  this 
instance,  the  aged  father  of  Ferdinand,  under  date  of 
April  4,  1806.7  According  to  the  terms  of  this  admira- 
bly executed  paper  the  partners  were  entitled  to  conduct 
all  the  affairs  of  the  grantors  in  reference  to  their  prop- 
erty in  the  United  States  to  the  best  of  their  judgment 
and  ability;  to  carry  on  the  "Mill  Grove"  farm,  to  the 
extent  of  their  part  ownership  in  the  estate,  or  to  dis- 
pose of  this  interest;  "to  exploit  or  cause  to  be  exploited 
the  mine  recently  discovered  on  the  said  farm,  to  con- 
sult in  every  important  matter  Mr.  Miers  Fisher,  mer- 
chant of  Philadelphia, — as  a  common  friend  and  good 
counsellor,  to  keep  all  necessary  books  and  registers, 
and  at  the  end  of  each  year,  or  sooner,  to  strike  a  bal- 
ance of  the  receipts  and  expenses  of  the  said  farm  and 
the  exploitation  of  the  mine,  should  there  be  reason 
for  it." 

To  secure  at  this  time  the  necessary  passports  for 
their  young  men  no  doubt  taxed  all  the  resources  of 
the  elder  Audubon;  Rozier's,  said  the  naturalist,  was 
written  in  Dutch,  of  which  he  did  not  understand  a 
single  word,  while  his  own  letter  stated  that  he  was  born 
in  New  Orleans.  These  subterfuges  worked  so  well 
that  the  inspection  officer,  after  reading  Audubon's  pa- 
per, promptly  offered  him  his  congratulations,  adding 

TFor  the  full  text  of  these  two  documents,  which  are  so  interest- 
ing for  our  story,  see  Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  9  and  10;  and  for 
translations,  Documents  Nos.  9a  and  lOa.  For  the  privilege  of  examining 
and  reproducing  the  first  of  these  papers  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Charles  A. 
Rozier,  of  St.  Louis,  and  for  the  second,  as  well  as  the  power  of  attorney 
of  1805  (see  Document  No.  8),  referred  to  earlier,  to  Mr.  Tom  J.  Rozier, 
of  Sainte  Genevieve,  Missouri.  In  the  case  of  this  second  warrant  it  will  be 
noticed  that  the  grantors  signed  only  the  minute  which  was  filed  with  the 
notaries,  who,  with  the  judge  of  the  Court  of  the  First  Instance,  affixed 
their  names  to  the  document  itself.  No  better  illustration  could  be  given 
of  the  dignity  which  the  French  attach  to  the  office  of  notary,  to  the  honored 
incumbents  of  which  their  private  affairs  are  unreservedly  entrusted,  than 
this  elaborate  judicial  document. 


134       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

that  he  would  be  only  too  glad  to  leave  his  unhappy 
country  under  as  favorable  conditions.  Audubon  and 
Rozier  sailed  from  Nantes  on  Saturday,  April  12,  1806, 
on  the  ship  Polly,  Captain  Sammis,  but  they  did  not 
land  in  New  York  until  Tuesday,  May  28,  after  a 
perilous  voyage  of  nearly  eight  weeks.  A  fortnight  had 
been  passed  at  sea  when  they  sighted  a  suspicious  look- 
ing vessel  which  immediately  gave  chase,  fired  several 
shots  across  their  bows,  and  compelled  the  captain  to 
heave  to  and  submit  to  being  boarded  and  searched. 
This  proved  to  be  an  English  privateer,  named  the 


RECEIPT  GIVEN  BY  CAPTAIN  S.   SAMMIS  OF  THE   aPOLLY"  TO  AUDUBON  AND  FERDI- 
NAND ROZIER  FOR  THEIR  PASSAGE  MONEY  FROM  NANTES  TO  NEW  YORK. 

From  the  Tom  J.  Rozier  MSS. 

Rattlesnake.  She  was  rather  considerate  for  a  British 
cruiser  of  the  period,  for  she  merely  impressed  two  of 
their  best  seamen  and  robbed  them  of  their  provisions, 
carrying  off,  said  Audubon,  all  of  their  "pigs,  sheep, 
coffee  and  wine,"  8  in  spite  of  loud  remonstrances  of  the 
captain  and  of  an  American  Congressman  who  hap- 

8  In  the  register  of  the  Central  Committee  of  Nantes  it  is  noted, 
under  date  of  October  4,  1793,  that  "owing  to  the  friendly  relations 
then  existing  between  France  and  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and 
to  the  good  feeling  evinced  by  them  in  sending  to  us  for  food,  four 
American  ships  are  accordingly  permitted  to  leave  the  port  of  Nantes, 
with  cargoes  of  wine,  sugar,  and  coffee,  and  also  to  take  enough  biscuit 
for  the  voyage." 


LAST  VISIT  TO  COUERON  135 

pened  to  be  among  the  passengers.  "The  Rattle- 
snake"  he  continued,  "kept  us  under  her  lee,  and  almost 
within  pistol-shot,  for  a  day  and  a  night,  ransacking  the 
ship  for  money,  of  which  we  had  a  great  store  in  the 
run  under  the  ballast  which  was  partially  removed,  but 
they  did  not  go  deep  enough  to  reach  the  treasure.  The 
gold  belonging  to  Rozier  and  myself  I  put  away  under 
the  ship's  cable  in  the  bow,  where  it  remained  until  the 
privateers  had  departed." 

Upon  reaching  a  point  thirty  miles  off  Sandy  Hook, 
they  learned  from  a  fishing  smack  that  two  British 
frigates  lay  off  the  harbor  and  were  impressing  Ameri- 
can seamen,  that,  in  short,  they  were  even  more  un- 
welcome than  pirates  who  sailed  under  letters  of  marque. 
The  captain,  thus  forewarned  of  one  danger,  had  the 
misfortune  to  run  into  another,  for  upon  taking  his 
vessel  into  Long  Island  Sound,  she  encountered  a  storm 
and  was  stranded  in  a  gale ;  no  great  harm  was  experi- 
enced, however,  for  the  vessel  was  finally  floated  off 
and  reached  New  York  on  the  following  day.  The 
passage  money  paid  by  Audubon  and  Rozier  to  Cap- 
tain Sammis  amounting  to  525  livres,  or  $125,9  was  en- 
tered, according  to  their  articles  of  agreement,  as  the 
first  item  of  their  "social  expenses."  After  a  brief  visit 
with  Benjamin  Bakewell  they  hurried  to  "Mill  Grove," 
and  Audubon  to  the  home  of  his  sweetheart,  Lucy. 

9  The  receipt  which  the  captain  handed  the  young  men,  and  which  the 
methodical  Rozier  preserved,  remains  as  a  souvenir  of  this  voyage  (in  the 
Tom  J.  Rozier  MSS);  it  reads  as  follows: 

Recvd.   from   Mr.  John   Audubon   & 

ferdinand  Rozier  the  sum  of  five  Hundred 
and  twenty  five  Livers  being  in  full  for  their 
passage  from  Nantes  to  New  York  in  the  Ship 

Polly S.  Sammis 

[In  Rozier's  (?)  handwriting]   New  York  May  28,  1806 
[Indorsed  by  Rozier  on  back]  Pay 6  le  11  avril  1806 


CHAPTER   X 

"LA  GERBETIERE"  OF  YESTERDAY  AND  TODAY 

Home  of  Audubon's  youth  at  Coueron — Its  situation  on  the  Loire — His- 
tory of  the  villa  and  commune — Changes  of  a  century. 

Before  following  further  Audubon's  history  in 
America,  we  shall  return  for  a  more  intimate  view  of 
the  happy  home  which  he  had  left  behind  him  in  France. 
This  was  at  Coueron,  a  small  commune  in  the  arron- 
dissement  of  Saint-Nazaire,  on  the  right  bank  of  the 
Loire,  nine  miles  west  of  Nantes.  Here,  as  we  have 
noticed,  his  father  had  acquired  a  country  place  at  about 
the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution.  The  old  house  still 
stands,  though  in  decay,  and  is  still  known  as  "La  Ger- 
betiere,"  a  name  possibly  referring  to  the  wheat  which 
is  harvested  from  the  surrounding  fields  as  of  yore.  In 
the  records  of  that  district  country  places  are  always 
designated  by  their  proper  names,  and  it  is  a  curious 
fact  that  while  such  names  survive,  they  are  seldom  or 
never  displayed  on  door  or  gate. 

In  a  journal  written  before  1826,  Audubon  says: 
"My  father's  beautiful  country  seat,  situated  within 
sight  of  the  Loire,  about  mid-distance  between  Nantes 
and  the  sea,  I  found  quite  delightful  to  my  taste,  not- 
withstanding the  frightful  cruelties  I  had  witnessed  in 
that  vicinity  not  many  years  previously.  The  gardens, 
greenhouses,  and  all  appertaining  to  it  appeared  to  me 
of  a  superior  cast."  Though  it  was  occupied  for  many 
years  previously  as  a  refuge  from  the  turmoil  or  heat 

136 


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"LA  GERBETIERE"  137 

of  the  city,  Lieutenant  Audubon  made  "La  Gerbetiere" 
his  permanent  abode  only  when  he  retired  from  the  navy 
in  1801,  still  maintaining,  as  we  have  seen,  a  foothold 
in  Nantes. 

Upon  Audubon's  first  return  from  the  United  States 
in  the  spring  of  1805,  he  said  that  his  vessel  entered  the 
mouth  of  the  Loire  and  anchored  off  Paimboeuf,  the 
lower  harbor  of  Nantes.  "On  sending  my  name  to  the 
principal  officer  of  the  customs,"  the  narrative  continues, 
"he  came  on  board,  and  afterwards  sent  me  to  my  fa- 
ther's villa,  La  Gerbetiere,  in  his  barge  and  with  his 
own  men."  It  is  to  be  noticed,  incidentally,  that  as  the 
distance  to  be  covered  between  the  lower  and  upper 
harbors  was  twenty-five  miles,  or  sixteen  miles  to 
Coueron,  such  journeys  no  doubt  were  made  upon  the 
arrival  of  incoming  vessels  for  the  regular  business  of 
the  service. 

It  has  been  suggested,  without  proof,  that  Coueron 
represents  the  ancient  town  of  Corbilo,  mentioned  by 
Strabo  at  the  beginning  of  our  era.  Though  unques- 
tionably ancient,  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution  it  was  a 
small  and  unimportant  parish  of  poor  but  industrious 
farmers.  It  occupies  rolling  ground,  but  little  raised 
above  the  Loire,  to  the  east  of  Port  Launay  and  nearly 
opposite  Pellerin.  As  this  commune  was  easily  acces- 
sible by  river-barge  from  Nantes,  the  revolutionists 
seem  to  have  thought  it  worth  watching,  though  Citizen 
Audubon  found  its  people  in  a  tranquil  mood  when  he 
canvassed  their  district  in  behalf  of  the  Central  Com- 
mittee in  April,  1793.  Coueron  is  still  a  farming  com- 
munity, but  its  population1  has  been  considerably 

1  The  total  population  of  Coueron,  as  given  in  the  official  directory 
for  1913,  was  2,035,  but  the  total  working  population  is  probably  three 
times  as  great. 


138       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

swelled  in  recent  years  by  the  development  of  a  large 
industry  for  the  treatment  of  lead;  it  is  the  shot  tower 
and  forest  of  chimneys  of  these  great  metallurgical 
works  that  arrest  the  eye  of  the  traveler  as  he  approaches 
Coueron  by  river  at  the  present  day.  The  town  is  also 
accessible  by  railroad,  but  the  steamer  journey  from 
Nantes,  which  is  made  in  less  than  an  hour,  is  more 
attractive  as  well  as  more  direct.  In  this  section  the 
Loire  is  flanked  on  either  side  by  bottom  lands,  reduced 
in  places  to  narrow  strips,  which  are  followed  at  inter- 
vals by  elevations  called,  by  courtesy,  hills  or  buttes.  To 
the  west  of  Coueron,  and  especially  at  Pellerin,  which 
stands  high,  these  buttes  come  close  to  the  river,  which 
is  eating  them  away. 

My  visit  to  Coueron,  which  was  made  on  a  warm 
midsummer's  day  in  1913,  served  to  correct  certain  pre- 
vious impressions,  but  I  found  the  old  Audubon  home- 
stead in  its  essential  aspects  but  little  changed,  consid- 
ering that  over  a  century  had  rolled  by  since  the  nat- 
uralist's visit  which  we  have  just  described.  After  leav- 
ing Nantes  at  the  Gare  de  la  Bourse  by  one  of  those 
quaint  little  trains  which  still  do  service  in  the  less  trav- 
eled parts  of  France,  we  traversed  the  broad  Quai  with 
requisite  deliberation,  passing  shops,  warehouses  and 
factories  in  long  array.  A  slight  swerve  from  the  river 
soon  brought  us  to  Chatenay,  now  a  part  of  the  city; 
it  is  still  some  distance  from  that  point  before  the  real 
countryside  is  reached,  and  scenes  familiar  to  southern 
Brittany  are  in  a  measure  reproduced.  There  were  the 
old  farmhouses  of  rough  stone,  dear  to  every  painter's 
heart,  mellowed  by  age  and  lichens,  and  surrounded  by 
great  ricks  of  straw,  for  the  harvest  had  been  gathered 
and  the  stubble  fields  were  brown.  There  also  the  farms 
were  divided  into  small  plats,  marked  by  willows  or 


"LA  GERBETIERE"  139 

ramparts  of  stone.  On  higher  ground  stood  the  wind- 
mills, characteristic  of  Brittany  also, — stalwart  towers 
of  stone,  with  broad  arms  of  latticed  wood  ever  ready 
to  take  the  sails. 

The  small  station  for  Coueron  lies  in  the  commune 
of  Sautron,  and  at  this  isolated  point  the  traveler  will 
sometimes  find  a  country  conveyance  to  take  him  to  the 
village.  While  we  were  raising  the  dust  from  this  old 
Coueron  pike  on  the  eighteenth  day  of  August,  swallows 
hawking  with  characteristic  energy  for  their  insect  prey 
were  the  only  birds  we  saw  to  remind  us  of  the  orni- 
thologist, who  as  a  youth  had  doubtless  passed  this  way 
many  times,  over  a  hundred  years  before.  The  most 
direct  approach  to  the  old  Audubon  place  from  Sautron, 
as  we  afterwards  learned,  is  by  a  path  which  diverges 
on  the  right  and  leads  through  stubble  fields  and  cab- 
bage patches,  along  hedgerows  and  stone  walls.  We, 
however,  fared  on  to  the  town  and  soon  began  to  pass 
shops  and  small  modern  houses.  On  the  side  of  the 
village  the  traveler's  eye  is  certain  to  be  arrested  by  a 
great  crucifix  in  stone,2  which  rises  high  above  the  street 
from  a  lofty  pedestal,  and  is  approached  by  tiers  of 
stone  steps.  Nearly  opposite  stands  the  secretariat,  or 
official  bureau  of  the  commune,  where  a  solitary  clerk, 
who  seemed  to  welcome  my  intrusion  in  a  place  where 
business  was  utterly  stagnant,  closed  his  office  and  with 
characteristic  courtesy  cheerfully  showed  me  the  way. 
This  led  directly  westward  to  one  side  of  the  center  of 
the  town,  and  after  passing  down  a  street  of  old  houses 


'There  is  also  the  grand  calvaire,  which  stands  on  an  eminence  in 
the  village.  This  was  erected  in  1825  on  the  foundations  of  the  chateau 
of  the  dukes  of  Brittany,  the  last  of  whom,  Francis  II,  died  at  Coueron 
in  1488.  His  tomb  is  in  the  nave  of  the  cathedral  at  Nantes;  the  grand 
calvaire  was  restored  by  two  Coueron  families  in  1873,  and  is  a  very  elabo- 
rate structure. 


140       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

of  the  humblest  description,  we  were  again  in  the  region 
of  brown  fields  and  old  farmsteads. 

Coueron  village,  which  is  marked  by  a  modern 
church  with  an  aggressive  spire,  extends  along  the  river 
bank,  but  since  its  streets  run  parallel  with  it,  the  river 
itself  is  seen  only  at  certain  openings,  occurring  at  irreg- 
ular intervals.  In  going  to  "La  Gerbetiere"  by  the 
course  I  have  described,  the  Loire  was  not  visible  at  any 
point,  and  was  not  seen  until  we  emerged  from  one  of 
the  village  streets  at  the  steamer's  pier.  My  guide  had 
said  that  from  the  rise  at  the  next  crossroads  we  should 
see  the  roof  of  the  house  which  we  had  come  to  visit,  and 
his  prediction  was  verified  when  I  recognized  immedi- 
ately its  cupola  raised  above  the  gray  stone  walls  which 
there  bound  every  highway  and  field.  The  old  villa  is 
rather  less  than  a  mile  from  the  village,  but  owing  to  the 
rolling  nature  of  the  country,  it  is  completely  hidden 
until  at  close  approach  it  stands  suddenly  revealed.  It 
lies  in  a  fork  of  the  road,  securely  inclosed  by  high, 
massive  walls  of  stone,  now  hoary  with  age,  while  on 
the  front  it  is  further  screened  by  a  natural  growth  of 
bushes  and  trees.  Immediately  behind  and  to  the  west 
rises  a  prominent  butte  which  cuts  off  the  view  to  Port 
Launay  on  the  river ;  this  forms  the  one  distinctive  land- 
mark of  the  district,  as  its  two  windmill  towers  are  vis- 
ible from  all  surrounding  points.  In  Audubon's  day 
the  house  commanded  a  wide  view  of  the  Loire,  but  the 
river  is  now  so  completely  masked  by  foliage  as  to  be 
visible  only  from  the  upper  windows;  apparently  it 
once  flowed  nearer  to  the  house  but  has  been  pushed 
away  by  the  construction  of  modern  dykes.  The  hill- 
top to  which  I  have  just  referred,  like  the  roof  of  the 
villa,  commands  a  panorama  of  the  whole  region,  in- 
cluding Nantes  and  all  the  surrounding  communes. 


"LA  GERBETIERE"  141 

"La  Gerbetiere"  is  now  a  small  estate  of  less  than 
fifty  ares,  or  one  and  a  half  acres,  of  land.  The  build- 
ings, which  form  a  quadrangle  with  enclosed  court,  oc- 
cupy a  corner  next  the  side  street,  and  stand  about  200 
feet  back  from  the  main  highway  leading  from  Coueron 
to  Port  Launay.  The  extent  of  the  original  property 
cannot  now  be  determined,  but  Lieutenant  Audubon, 
who  retired  at  the  age  of  fifty-seven,  was  never  a  farmer 
on  a  large  scale.  The  original  house,  which  probably 
dates  from  early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  has  an  east- 
erly wing  or  L,  continued  into  a  long,  low  section 
through  which  the  court  is  now  entered  from  the  road  at 
the  side ;  this  was  probably  added  by  Jean  Audubon,  but 
the  westerly  end  and  wing  are  a  more  modern  accretion, 
built  for  the  accommodation  of  additional  tenants,  as 
many  as  three  families  having  occupied  the  place  in 
1857. 

"La  Gerbetiere"  was  entered  from  the  main  street 
by  a  small  door  which  pierces  the  high  enclosing  wall, 
and  leads  the  visitor  into  what  was  formerly  an  orna- 
mental garden,  the  original  design  of  which  can  still  be 
traced.  At  the  time  of  my  visit,  however,  this  entrance 
had  long  ceased  to  be  an  avenue  of  response.  Encour- 
aged by  the  sight  of  a  peddler's  cart,  I  walked  up  the 
side  street  and  entered  the  court.  Here  the  response 
was  prompt  and  vigorous  enough,  and  from  the  guard- 
ians of  the  place,  one  of  which  was  chafing  at  his  chain 
close  to  the  doorway.  I  crossed  rather  gingerly  to  an 
open  hallway,  opposite  the  main  entrance,  and  knocked 
repeatedly,  noting  here  that  rooms  opened  to  this  small 
entrance  hall  on  either  side,  and  that  a  steep  stairway 
led  to  others  above.  At  last,  during  a  temporary  lull 
in  the  barking  of  dogs,  the  "tok-tok"  of  sabots  was 
heard  on  the  stairs,  and  I  handed  up  my  card  with  one 


142       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

from  the  director  of  the  Natural  History  Museum  at 
Nantes.  After  various  messages  had  been  shouted  back 
and  forth,  I  was  led  through  another  passage  to  the 
tenant,  who  was  talking  with  the  peddler  in  the  garden. 
Julien  Lebreton,  who  was  a  farmer  on  a  small  scale, 
received  me  kindly  and  answered  my  questions  to  the 
best  of  his  ability;  it  did  not  surprise  me  that  he  was 
both  puzzled  and  suspicious,  or  that  his  first  thought  was 
of  our  coming  to  look  over  the  place  with  a  view  to  its 
purchase. 

The  decayed  villa,  which  stands  in  the  midst  of  scat- 
tered farmhouses  of  a  humble  order,  reproduces  a  style 
characteristic  of  many  parts  of  France.  The  original 
house,  of  two  stories,  was  built  of  cream-colored  lime- 
stone, similar  to  that  for  which  many  French  towns  are 
famous.  It  has  a  swelled  slated  roof  with  beveled 
gables.  Surmounting  the  roof  is  a  cupola  which  sug- 
gests a  third  story,  carried  out  in  harmony  with  the 
lower  structure.  A  narrow  balcony,  resting  upon  a 
molding  of  stone  and  protected  by  an  iron  grill,  with- 
out which  no  such  house  would  be  considered  complete, 
runs  the  length  of  the  second  story,  and  is  accessible 
from  every  room  by  glass  doors.  From  the  main  en- 
trance below  one  passes  directly  through  to  the  court, 
about  which  are  now  grouped  various  stables  and  other 
low  buildings,  not  all  of 'which  date  from  Audubon's 
day. 

What  was  once  a  small  formal  garden  is  still  marked 
by  solid  boundaries  of  cut  limestone.  This  was  evi- 
dently constructed  by  Jean  Audubon,  since  it  occupies 
the  area  in  front  of  the  original  house  and  the  easterly 
extension  which  is  attributed  to  him.  The  remaining 
available  land  was  devoted  to  fruit,  vegetables,  and  pos- 
sibly to  the  greenhouses  which  the  naturalist  mentioned. 


'I. A    GERHETIURE       AND    COUEBON,    AS    SliKN     IIJO^l     THE    \V  I  X  1)^1  I  I.I.    TO  \VEUS    ON    T11K 

RiixiE   ovEnr.ooKixi;   PORT    I.AI-NAV,   ON    TIII:    I.OIKK. 

'LA    GERBETIERE,"    AS   SEEN    WIIEX    APPROACHED    I  UO>1     Cofi-'ROX    VILLAGE    BY   THE 

ROAD    TO    1'OKT    I. \TN\V. 
PORT    LA  IT  NAY     ON     THE     LOIRE. 


"LA  GERBETIERE"  143 

At  one  time  an  orangery  occupied  some  part  of  the 
house  or  court.  There  are  now  no  large  trees  on  the 
property;  the  fruits  are  all  of  recent  and  inferior 
growth,  while  the  garden  I  saw  was  planted  to  cabbage 
and  running  riot  with  weeds. 

When  Jean  and  Madame  Audubon  passed  through 
the  door  leading  from  the  main  street,  they  entered  upon 
a  paved  alley  which  ran  parallel  with  the  high  wall, 
whence  they  could  reach  the  house  by  any  one  of  several 
walks  or  enter  the  fruit  garden  by  another.  If  so  in- 
clined, they  could  turn  to  the  right,  ascend  a  flight  of 
granite  steps  to  a  platform  on  a  level  with  the  top  of 
the  wall,  and  under  a  shady  bower  of  vines  and  leafy 
shrubbery,  look  off  on  the  racing  waters  of  the  Loire, 
scrutinize  their  visitors  before  admitting  them,  or  ob- 
serve such  manifestations  of  life  as  lonely  country  roads 
of  that  period  had  to  offer.  As  they  passed  up  the  cen- 
tral garden  walk  they  could  admire  the  beds  of  old- 
fashioned  flowers,  kept,  we  may  be  sure,  in  perfect 
order,  for  Jean  was  a  very  methodical  man,  and  his 
wife,  we  believe,  an  excellent  home  maker.  This  walk 
led  to  a  low  terrace,  flanked  with  a  heavy  wall,  which 
ran  the  whole  length  of  the  house. 

What  little  I  saw  of  the  interior  of  "La  Gerbetiere" 
was  wholly  devoid  of  interest,  which  agrees  with  the 
experience  of  another  traveler  who  visited  Coueron  at  a 
slightly  earlier  date;3  at  the  time  of  his  visit  the  place 
was  unoccupied  and  forlorn,  and  the  vegetation  on  the 
garden  side  so  dense  that  it  was  utterly  impossible  to 
see  any  distance  from  the  lower  windows. 

When  "La  Gerbetiere"  came  into  Jean  Audubon's 


•Mr.  William  Beer,  who  paid  a  visit  to  "La  Gerbetiere"  with  Dr. 
Louis  Bureau  in  1910,  writes  me  that  the  woodwork  was  poor  in  quality, 
and  that  all  the  rooms  had  been  altered  in  size  and  appearance. 


144       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

possession  it  was  already  venerable  with  age,  and  it 
was  completely  restored  for  him  by  an  architect  named 
Lavigne.4  In  an  inventory  drawn  up  shortly  after 
Madame  Audubon's  death  in  October,  1821,  the  prop- 
erty of  "La  Gerbetiere"  is  described  by  reproducing  the 
account  given  in  an  early  deed  bearing  date  of  Novem- 
ber 11,  1769,  which  reads  as  follows: 

A  house  called  La  Gerbetiere,  situated  near  the  port  of 
Launay,  consisting  of  a  sitting  room,  drawing  room,  kitchen, 
upper  chamber  .  .  .  garret,  and  other  quarters  serving  as  a 
laundry,  stable  at  the  back,  with  pigeon  loft  above,  court,  par- 
terre, vegetable  garden  to  one  side,  an  orangery  with  orange 
trees,  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  the  whole  in  front  of  a  close 
surrounded  by  high  walls  except  on  the  side  of  the  setting  sun, 
with  land  belonging  to  the  heirs  of  M.  de  la  Haye  Moricaud, 
held  mutually,5  the  whole  bounded  on  all  other  sides  by  high- 
ways. Notice:  The  aforesaid  house  and  parterre  [stand]  in 
an  empty  field,  which  serves  as  a  fair-ground,  and  is  partly 
planted  with  young  trees  in  serial  rows ;  held  in  common  with 
the  Marquis  de  la  Musse,  with  another  empty  field  containing 
about  two  journals  of  land.  .  .  .6 

"La  Gerbetiere,"  never  more  than  an  unpretentious 
country  house  with  an  attractive  garden,  was  idealized 
in  the  fervent  imagination  of  Audubon  when  in  after 
life  he  drew  upon  the  memories  of  his  youth  in  France ; 
for  it  had  meant  to  him  escape  from  the  city,  which  he 
detested,  to  the  fields  and  river  which  he  loved.  Yet, 
in  spite  of  the  abuse  which  a  long  line  of  poor  tenantry 
inevitably  entails,  with  intervals  of  total  neglect  last- 

4  But  not  related  to  M.  L.  Lavigne,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  ex- 
tracts  from  the  deed,  a  translation  of  which  is  given  below,  as  well  as 
for  many  other  references. 

5  That  is,  the  landlord  to  receive  one-half  the  produce. 

flA  "journal"  of  land  being  as  much  as  a  man  could  cultivate  in  a 
day's  labor. 


"LA  GERBETIERE"  145 

ing  for  nearly  a  century,  this  decayed  villa  of  pre-Revo- 
lutionary  days  still  stands,  in  marked  contrast  to  its 
neighbors,  and  bears  witness  to  a  taste  to  which  they 
were  strangers.  The  greenhouses,  the  fruit  and  shade 
trees,  if  such  it  possessed,  and  all  lesser  adornments  of 
the  place  have  vanished  long  ago,  but  thanks  to  the 
durability  of  French  stone  and  mortar,  much  about  this 
old  country  seat  is  still  well  preserved.  Whether  Audu- 
bon  ever  saw  his  old  Coueron  home  again  after  leaving 
it  in  1806  is  doubtful,  though  one  of  his  sons  visited  the 
place,  and  the  naturalist  incidentally  speaks  of  a  pil- 
grimage to  Les  Sables  d'Olonne  which  might  have  oc- 
curred in  1831  or  a  little  later.  In  following  the  for- 
tunes of  the  naturalist's  family  in  France  it  will  be  nec- 
essary for  us  to  return  to  La  Gerbetiere.7 

'See  Chapter  XVII. 


CHAPTER   XI 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS  AT  NEW  YORK,  AND 
SEQUEL  TO  THE  "MILL  GROVE"  MINE 

Audubon  and  Rozier  at  "Mill  Grove" — Their  partnership  rules — Attempts 
to  form  a  mining  company  lead  to  disappointment — Decision  to  sell 
their  remaining  interests  in  "Mill  Grove"  to  Dacosta — Division  of  the 
property  and  legal  entanglements — Audubon  as  a  clerk  in  New  York — 
Business  correspondence  and  letters  to  his  father — Later  history  of 
the  lead  mine  and  Dacosta — Audubon  continues  his  drawings  in  New 
York  and  works  for  Dr.  Mitchell's  Museum — Forsakes  the  counting 
room  for  the  fields — Personal  sketch. 


When  Audubon  and  Rozier  reached  "Mill  Grove" 
at  the  beginning  of  the  summer  of  1806,  they  found 
the  troublesome  Dacosta  installed  as  its  master  by  virtue 
of  his  interest  in  the  property  and  his  former  position 
as  agent,  to  which  they  were  now  to  succeed.  No  doubt 
they  found  difficulties  in  carrying  out  all  the  articles  of 
agreement  *  in  their  business  constitution,  for  they  were 
to  take  possession  and  call  Dacosta  to  account.  They 
were  also  in  duty  bound  to  investigate  the  lead  mine 
on  the  farm,  and  ascertain  whether  it  promised  any 
success,  and  if  the  expenses  already  incurred  were  war- 

1  For  the  privilege  of  examining  Ferdinand  Rozier's  copy  of  their 
"Articles  of  Association"  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Charles 
A.  Rozier,  of  Saint  Louis.  This  is  written  on  three  sides  of  hand-made, 
hand-ruled  Government  linen,  small  letter  size,  with  printed  revenue  stamp 
(50  centimes)  of  the  French  Republic  at  top,  and  stamped  with  the 
seal  of  the  Department  of  Registration  and  Stamps  ("ADM.  DES  DOM. 
DE  L'ENREG.  ET  DU  TIMBRE  REP.  FRA.— Administration  des 
domaines  de  I'enregistrement  et  du  timbre,  Rtpublique  Frangaise").  The 
signature  of  "Jean  Audubon"  bears  a  close  resemblance  to  that  of  the 
father,  Lieutenant  Jean  Audubon,  who  was  undoubtedly  the  author  of 
the  document.  For  the  "Articles"  in  full,  in  French  and  English,  see 
Appendix  I,  Documents  Nos.  9  and  9a. 

146 


^   JL  rnstt*     *       \S*»*<~       \, 

s*~etsr  ,j4t  *,     £efst  .w+n  ftS      xt 


*<***       «+<  U^**,  *,<•       *f^KJ         S    ^      c,f     ^    ^ 

St^  Ai*/*/  <?#t  sss<s*s  a*   igi^iyf  i***s    a/<+t  *«*  s*'**.^ 
/  jr1'         ',  *s    T.    ' 


Hi:(;iNMN(;    OF    THE    "ARTICLES    OF    ASSOCTATIOX"    OF    JOHX    JAMES    AUDUBON    AKO 
FERDIXAXI)    ROXIER,    SIGNED    AT    NAXTES,    MARCH    23,    180(5. 

After  the  original  manuscript  of  Roger's  copy,  in  possession  of  Mr. 

A.  Rosier. 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     147 

ranted,  before  committing  themselves  to  further  devel- 
opment. One-half  the  product  of  the  mine  and  farm 
was  to  be  equally  divided  between  them,  and  in  order 
to  visualize  clearly  their  profit  and  loss,  they  agreed  to 
keep  a  "special  book  for  the  purpose."  "On  one  side," 
their  third  "Article"  read,  "will  be  entered  the  items  of 
expense,  day  by  day,  and  at  the  moment  this  is  done, 
on  the  other  side  [shall  also  be  entered]  the  sales  and 
products  of  the  farms,  and  of  all  that  can  result  from 
this  business,  in  such  a  way  that  the  profit  shall  be 
always  apparent  by  the  addition  of  the  items  which 
compose  the  debit  and  the  credit." 

The  house  at  "Mill  Grove"  was  to  be  treated  as  an 
object  separate  from  all  business,  "in  order,"  so  the 
"Articles"  read,  "that  we  may  settle  matters  as  com- 
pletely as  we  desire."  It  was  also  agreed,  in  the  fourth 
"Article,"  that  they  should  "add  to  the  expenses  of 
this  exploitation  those  necessary  for  life,  and  others  of 
a  mutual  character,  so  long  as  it  should  suit  them  to 
live  and  dwell  together."  It  was  further  stipulated  that 
even  if  the  mine  proved  a  failure,  they  should  remain 
six  months  on  the  farm,  in  order  to  gather  useful  infor- 
mation from  the  country,  before  embarking  in  any  form 
of  commerce,  whether  inland  or  maritime.  The  cost  of 
their  journey  to  America  was  to  be  entered  as  the  first 
item  of  their  "social  expenses,"  and  any  expenditure 
for  travel  in  their  mutual  interests  was  to  be  considered 
under  the  same  head.  In  case  they  should  persuade  any 
merchants  in  America  to  send  goods  to  M.  Rozier, 
Senior,  at  Nantes,  he  should  be  entitled  to  one-half  the 
profits,  while  the  partners  should  divide  the  other  half 
between  them.  All  other  profits  and  losses  resulting 
from  their  commercial  transactions  were  to  be  shared 
equally.  The  partners  resolved  to  maintain  friendship 


148       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

and  a  mutual  understanding,  but  "upon  the  least  dif- 
ficulty" each  should  choose  one  arbitrator,  and  the  two 
thus  chosen  were  authorized  to  select  a  third;  the  part- 
ners were  bound  to  accept  the  decision  thus  reached 
without  appealing  to  any  court.  In  the  case  of  the 
death  of  one  of  the  associates,  read  the  tenth  "Article," 
the  survivor  should  have  sole  charge  of  making  a  set- 
tlement of  the  business  and  should  report  to  the  proper 
heirs.  The  survivor,  in  such  an  event,  would  be  enti- 
tled to  a  commission  of  ten  per  cent  [in  addition  to  his 
one-half  interest] ,  but  in  no  case  should  the  partnership 
be  dissolved  "until  after  nine  years,  counting  from  the 
day  of  the  date  of  the  present  [instrument]."  As  will 
be  seen,  Audubon  and  Rozier  were  unable  to  fulfill  all 
the  conditions  thus  carefully  laid  down. 

Young  Audubon's  dislike  of  Dacosta,  the  uncer- 
tainty of  the  mining  project,  and  other  difficulties  of 
the  situation  soon  decided  the  partners  to  cut  short  their 
stay  at  "Mill  Grove."  Both  were  equally  interested  in 
the  lead  mine,  but  after  working  several  months  with- 
out success  in  an  attempt  to  form  a  mining  company, 
they  wisely  decided  to  leave  such  experiments  to  the 
enthusiastic  Dacosta  and  to  seek  an  opening  in  trade, 
where  the  hazard  would  be  no  greater  and  their  igno- 
rance less  profound.  Following  the  advice  of  their 
Quaker  friend,  Miers  Fisher,  they  decided  to  sell  to 
Dacosta  their  remaining  rights  in  "Mill  Grove."  As  a 
preliminary  it  was  necessary  to  divide  the  property 
which  had  been  held  in  common  by  him  and  Lieutenant 
Audubon  since  1804,  and  this  division  was  effected  by 
an  agreement  drawn  up  at  Philadelphia  on  the  fifth  day 
of  September,  1806.2  Ten  days  later  the  remainder 

2  Among  the  elder  Rozier's  papers  was  part  of  an  old  letterbook  be- 
longing to  his  son;  it  is  written  in  French,  and  labeled  "Correspondence 
of  Ferdinand  Rozier."  On  one  of  the  four  sheets  preserved  this  item 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     149 

of  "Mill  Grove"  was  conveyed  to  Francis  Dacosta,  rep- 
resenting a  number  of  capitalists  whom  he  had  man- 
aged to  interest  in  the  mine,  of  whom  the  astute 
Stephen  Girard  is  said  to  have  been  one.  The  sale 
was  subject  to  conditions,3  dependent  upon  their  suc- 
cess in  mining  lead,  which,  as  will  appear  eventually, 
could  not  have  been  fulfilled.  These  various  transac- 
tions are  so  clearly  set  forth  by  Ferdinand  Rozier  in 
writing  to  his  father  at  Nantes  that  we  shall  reproduce 
his  letter  in  full:4 

Ferdinand  Rozier  to  Claude  Francois  Rozier 

PHILADELPHIA,  12  Sept.,  1806 
Duplicate. 

MY  VERY  DEAR  AND  VENERABLE  FATHER  I 

Still  in  hope  of  cherished  news  from  you,  and  replies  to 
my  letters  of  31  May,  22  June,  and  4  July,  I  have  to  tell  you 
that  we  have  since  succeeded  in  closing  all  our  business  rela- 
tions with  Mr.  Francis  Dacosta,  in  the  following  manner:  We 
are  anxious  that  our  method  of  procedure  may  be  satisfactory 
to  you;  we  have  followed  the  advice  of  Mr.  Miers  Fisher,  and 
have  had  his  approval  in  all  that  we  have  done.  What  should 
set  you  at  rest  is  that  as  regards  your  investment,  you  will  find 

occurs:  "4  July,  1806,  Philadelphia;  record  of  an  agreement  with  Mr. 
Dacosta,  proprietor  of  one  half  of  the  Mill  Grove  farm, — at  least  of  the 
value  of  sale."  The  first  entry  is  dated  "19  fevrier— 1806,  New  York," 
which,  if  correct,  would  imply  that  Rozier  spent  two  years  instead  of  one 
in  the  United  States  when  he  visited  this  country  in  1804  (or  came  a  second 
time),  and  that  he  returned,  with  young  Audubon,  almost  immediately  after 
reaching  France  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  245);  the  last  record  is  "August,  1807,  New 
York."  (MS.  in  possession  of  Dr.  Louis  Bureau,  Nantes.) 

•According  to  the  records  of  Montgomery  County,  as  collated  for 
Mr.  W.  H.  Wetherill,  the  remaining  half  interest  in  "Mill  Grove"  was 
sold  by  J.  J.  Audubon  (and  Ferdinand  Rozier)  to  Francis  Dacosta  & 
Company,  for  a  consideration  of  $9,640.33.  The  business  was  conducted 
mainly  by  Rozier,  acting  under  the  advice  of  their  friend,  Miers  Fisher. 

4  Translated  from  the  French  of  Ferdinand's  copy,  in  possession  of 
Mr.  Welton  A.  Rozier,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  repro- 
ducing it. 


150       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

that  I  have  made  quite  a  neat  profit.     Here  is  a  copy  of  the 
agreement. 

"It  is  agreed  between  Mr.  Dacosta  and  Mr.  J.  Audubon 
that  the  farm  of  "Mill  Grove,"  which  they  now  hold  in 
common,  shall  be  divided  between  them  as  follows : 

"1.  Mr.  Dacosta  shall  have  the  lot  of  113  and  a  half 
acres,  situated  on  the  N.E.  side  of  Perkioming  creek,  with 
all  the  buildings,  mines,  et  cet.,  and  in  general  all  that  it 
contains. 

"2.  Mr.  Audubon  shall  have  the  lot  of  171  acres,  situ- 
ated on  the  other  side  of  the  creek. 

"3.  Mr.  Dacosta  shall  pay  to  Mr.  Audubon  for  the 
difference  [in  value]  of  the  lot  of  113%  acres,  and  of  that 
which  it  contains : 

"1.  The  sum  of  eight  hundred  dollars,  payable 
with  interest,  in  three  years  from  this  day ; 

"£.  The  sum  of  four  thousand  dollars,  upon  the 
first  products  of  the  lead  mine. 

"4.  The  contract  made  with  Mr.  Thomas  shall  remain 
to  the  charge  of  the  two  parties. 

"Note.  Mr.  Duponceau  is  begged  to  draw  up  the  neces- 
sary deeds  to  put  this  agreement  into  execution,  which 
[deeds]  we  undertake  mutually  to  exchange  at  the  first 
requisition." 

"[Executed]  at  Philadelphia,  this  5th  of  Sept,  1806." 

[Signed]      "Fcis  DACOSTA" 
"FERDINAND  ROZIER" 
"  J.  AUDUBON" 

The  futile  attempt  that  we  have  made  to  form  a  company 
[to  work  this  mine],  which  is  a  condition  [of  success],  the 
slight  resources  at  our  command,  as  well  as  our  lack  of  knowl- 
edge in  work  of  this  kind,  all  have  determined  us  to  abandon 
our  rights  for  the  offer  of  four  thousand  dollars5  upon  the  first 
products  that  shall  come  from  the  mine.  The  expense  that  must 

6 "Gourdes"  that  is,  piasters  or  Spanish  dollars. 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     151 

be  incurred  in  [working]  it  will  be  very  heavy ;  to  this  must  be 
added  the  uncertainty  of  success.  The  mine  may  promise  much 
at  the  beginning,  and  after  that  yield  nothing.  In  short  an, 
enterprise  of  this  kind  can  be  properly  conducted  only  by  a 
capitalist  or  by  a  company.  We  have  regarded  this  mine  as  a 
lottery  which  can  make  the  fortune  of  the  promoter,  or  lead 
him  into  great  losses.  As  to  the  agreement  with  Mr.  Wm. 
Thomas,  we  do  not  consider  it  as  very  serious ;  since  it  is  quite 
uncertain  whether  he  will  be  paid  in  whole  or  in  part,  as  he  has 
not  kept  his  agreements.  This  is  Mr.  Dacosta's  opinion.  As 
to  our  half  we  are  decided  not  to  let  it  go  under  eight  thou- 
sand dollars,  which  is  its  value  as  estimated  by  several  farmers. 
So  you  see,  my  dear  papa,  that  our  half  [as  worth]  8,000 
dollars,  at  least,  the  sum  of  eight  hundred  dollars  by  mortgage, 
with  interest,  and  that  of  four  thousand  dollars  upon  the  first 
products  from  the  mine,  will  cover  easily  the  interest  on  the 
purchase  of  sixteen  thousand  francs. 

Since  expenses  are  at  least  double  what  they  would  be  in 
France,  owing  to  the  cost  of  products  of  every  sort,  we  are  de- 
termined to  go  into  trade,  to  cover  our  expenses,  and  to  choose 
for  ourselves  some  kind  of  serious  work  that  can  lead  us  to  an 
honorable  establishment.  You  should  be  at  ease  about  the 
manner  we  shall  adopt  for  our  operations,  as  we  wish  only  to 
go  slowly,  and  especially  [to  be]  guided  by  the  advice  of  the 
respectable  persons  whose  acquaintance  we  are  so  fortunate  as 
to  enjoy,  and  who  beyond  a  doubt  will  aid  us  along  this  thorny 
path. 

"By  our  letter  of  the  4th  July  we  have  sent  the  account 
current  of  Mr.  Dacosta,  by  which  Mr.  Audubon  is  charged  with 
315  dollars  and  5  cents ;  we  have  begged  you  to  send  the  docu- 
mentary evidence  which  may  put  us  in  a  position  to  prove  that. 
Mr.  Audubon  ought  not  to  pay  Mr.  Dacosta's  private  expenses, 
as  the  matter  is  to  be  decided  here  by  arbitrators.  We  beg  Mr. 
Audubon  to  use  the  utmost  speed  in  sending  his  documents.  It 
is  our  ardent  [hope]  also  that  you  have  received  our  first 
[letter]  of  May  31,  with  that  of  Mr.  Bakewell,  the  merchant 
in  New  York,  with  a  remittance  of  3,000  and  a  few  francs  for 


152       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  purchase  of  divers  objects.  I  assure  you  that  we  are  in 
the  greatest  anxiety  [as  to]  what  is  the  state  of  your  health,6 
as  well  as  that  of  the  family,  and  to  learn  if  you  have  received 
our  letters.  The  nephew  of  Mr.  Bakewell  writes  us  that  his 
uncle  in  New  York  has  despatched  several  vessels  consigned  to 
you,  for  which  I  congratulate  you  sincerely.  We  have  also 
received  your  letter  of  the  30th  of  June,  but  I  cannot  reply  to 
it,  since  the  boat  is  leaving  this  evening  for  Amsterdam,  but 
you  can  count  upon  my  conforming  to  its  contents.  Your  per- 
sonal letter  grieved  me  particularly  by  your  last  expressions, 
and  I  should  wish  that  you  would  have  done  me  more  justice;  I 
can  have  made  mistakes,  but  for  .  .  .  the  idea  alone  has  made 
me  shudder.  I  am  delighted  that  all  the  family  is  enjoying 
perfect  health.  Embrace  dear  Mama  for  me ;  my  kind  regards 
to  my  brother  and  sisters ;  do  not  forget  to  remember  me  to  all 
the  family,  and  to  our  friend,  Mr.  Audubon,  the  father,  and 
his  family.  Finally,  my  dear  Papa,  be  assured  that  I  shall 
forget  nothing  to  increase  our  intimacy.  You  give  me  the 
means  of  supporting  it  with  labor.  Believe  in  my  sincere  and 
enduring  attachment. 

Your  respectful  son, 

FERDINAND  ROZIEE. 
We  are  eager  to  hear  of  the  receipt  of 
our  letters,  and  we  beg  you  to  ad- 
dress them  to  Mr.  Bakewell  of  New 
York. 

The  inbred  caution,  sound  sense,  and  sterling 
integrity  which  this  letter  displays  would  be  a  good 
foundation  for  any  career,  and  we  are  not  surprised 
to  find  that  in  after  life  Ferdinand  Rozier  became  a 
keen  and  successful  trader  on  the  western  frontier. 

The  division  and  sale  of  "Mill  Grove"  probably 

•Claude  Francois  Rozier,  at  this  time  an  aged  man,  died  at  Nantes 
on  September  7,  1807;  he  had  two  sons  and  six  daughters,  of  whom 
Ferdinand  was  the  second  son  and  the  fifth  child;  his  wife,  Ren£e 
Angelique  Colas,  died  at  Nantes,  February  9,  1824. 


I  £ 

^f^i 

^ 


I-IKST   PAGE    OF  TIIK    I'OUKK    OF    ATI'OHNKV    liKANTKI)    BY   JEAX    AUDI  HON,    AXXK    .-\IOY- 

XKT  AUDUBOX  AND  CI.AUDK  FHAXl'OIS  KOXIKK  TO  .IOIIX  JA.MKS  ATDUBON 
AND  H:HI)IN\M>  KOXM-IK,   XAXTKS,  AI-HII.  4,  180(). 

After  the  original  manuscript  of  Ferdinand   Hoxicr's  copy,  in  ]>ossession  of 

Mr.  Tom  J.  Hosier. 


o 

5?  £o     •£ 
a  «£    £ 


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FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     153 

ended  the  joint  interests  of  the  elder  Audubon  and 
Rozier,  for  in  November,  1806,  a  new  power  of  attor- 
ney 7  was  given  to  the  young  men  by  Lieutenant  Audu- 
bon and  his  wife;  as  later  events  will  prove,  however, 
their  rights  in  the  property  were  not  completely  sur- 
rendered with  its  transfer  to  Dacosta  and  his  mining 
company  in  the  autumn  of  this  year.  The  partners  were 
now  free  to  "choose  some  kind  of  serious  work,"  and 
Ferdinand,  who  was  then  twenty-nine,  was  anxious  to 
make  a  beginning  at  once.  Since  he  was  not  as  yet 
proficient  in  the  English  tongue,  Rozier  engaged  as  a 
clerk  in  the  French  importing  house  of  Laurence 
Huron,  of  Philadelphia,  while  Audubon,  following  the 
advice  of  his  future  father-in-law,  entered  the  office  of 
the  latter's  brother,  Benjamin  Bakewell,  in  New  York. 
In  the  autumn  of  1806  Benjamin  Bakewell  was 
conducting  a  successful  wholesale  importing  business  at 
175  Pearl  Street.  He  then  owned  several  vessels,  and 
his  correspondents  were  scattered  over  England, 
France,  the  West  Indies  and  the  Southern  States. 
With  him  were  associated  at  this  time  a  number  of 
young  men,  including  his  nephew,  Thomas  W.  Bake- 


7  This  was  issued,  so  the  letter  reads,  to  "their  son,  John  Audubon, 
and  Ferdinand  Rozier,  both  of  the  said  city  of  Philadelphia,  Gentlemen," 
by  "John  Audubon,  late  of  the  city  of  Philadelphia,  in  the  common- 
wealth of  Pennsylvania,  now  residing  in  the  commune  of  Coueron,  near  the 
city  of  Nantes  in  France,  Gentleman,  and  Anne  Moynette,  his  wife,"  to 
apply  to  all  lands  and  other  property  belonging  to  them  in  the  United 
States,  with  the  power  to  "raise  or  borrow  money  on  the  whole  or  any  part 
or  parts  of  the  said  lands,  tenements,  or  hereditaments,  to  secure  the 
repayment  of  said  monies  by  bond,  warrant  of  attorney,  to  contest  judg- 
ment of  the  mortgage  of  the  said  lands,  tenements,  or  hereditaments,  or 
any  part  or  parts  thereof.  .  .  ."  Written  in  French  and  English;  signed 
by  Jean  Audubon,  Anne  Moynet,  his  wife,  by  Doctors  Chapelain  and  C. 
d'Orbigny  as  witnesses,  by  the  mayor  of  Coueron,  the  prefect  of  the 
arrondissement  and  the  prefect  of  the  department;  countersigned  on 
December  4,  1806,  by  W.  D.  Patterson,  of  the  "Commercial  Agency  of  the 
United  States  at  Nantes."  For  the  favor  of  examining  this  paper,  I  am 
indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon. 


154       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

well,  Thomas  Pears,  a  nephew  of  his  wife,  Thomas 
Bake  well,  his  son,  as  well  as  John  James  Audubon. 
The  hospitable  family  to  which  young  Audubon  was 
now  admitted  on  terms  of  intimacy,  in  accordance  with 
the  custom  of  the  day,  lived  in  the  rear  of  the  counting- 
house  during  the  winter  months  but  in  summer  migrated 
to  the  country,  the  Bakewells  going  five  miles  out  on 
the  Bloomingdale  Road.  Benjamin  Bakewell  had 
come  to  this  country  in  1794,  in  the  same  year  as  the 
famous  chemist,  Joseph  Priestley,  whose  friendship  he 
enjoyed  and  whose  religious  teachings  had  drawn  both 
him  and  his  brother,  William,  from  rigid  Calvinism  to 
the  greater  tolerance  of  the  Unitarian  belief.  At 
twenty-four  he  was  an  independent  mercer  in  Corn- 
hill,  London,  and  was  well  acquainted  in  France,  where 
he  had  spent  considerable  time  during  the  Revolution, 
which  had  destroyed  his  trade.  One  of  his  patrons  at 
this  time  was  Claude  Fra^ois  Rozier  of  Nantes,  and 
inasmuch  as  the  correspondence  with  him  had  to  be 
conducted  in  French,  and  may  possibly  in  this  instance 
have  been  due  to  young  Audubon's  initiative,  it  was 
naturally  intrusted  to  him. 

Seven  letters  of  the  naturalist,  dating  from  January 
10,  1807,  to  July  19  of  that  year,  by  good  fortune  have 
been  preserved,  and  they  throw  into  full  light  another 
shaded  corner  of  his  interesting  life.  From  the  con- 
tents of  these  letters,8  as  well  as  from  other  facts,  we 

8  For  the  privilege  of  examining  these  letters  I  am  indebted  to  the 
courtesy  of  Dr.  Louis  Bureau,  Director  of  the  Museum  of  Natural  His- 
tory and  Professor  in  the  School  of  Medicine  at  Nantes,  maternal  great- 
grandson  of  Fran£ois,  and  grandnephew  of  Ferdinand  Rozier.  The  letters 
were  found  in  an  old  trunk  that  once  belonged  to  his  grandfather,  Fran?ois 
Denis  Rozier.  Five  were  written  in  French  (Nos.  1,  2,  4,  6  and  7),  and 
addressed  from  New  York  to  Francois  Rozier  at  Nantes;  one  (No.  3) 
in  English  and  another  (No.  5)  in  French  were  sent  in  care  of  Rozier, 
to  his  father,  John  Audubon,  Esq.,  Nantes,  with  the  direction  to  be 
delivered  as  soon  as  possible;  all  are  on  unruled  foolscap,  wafer-sealed, 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     155 

know  that  Audubon  remained  in  Bakewell's  office  for 
nearly  a  year,  from  the  autumn  of  1806  to  the  summer 
of  1807.  Bakewell's  house  imported  linens,  lace,  gloves, 
wines,  firearms  and  any  kind  of  merchandise  that  prom- 
ised a  ready  and  remunerative  sale  in  New  York;  in 
return  they  forwarded  coffees,  sugars  and  other  com- 
modities to  Rozier,  receiving  from  him  also  prices  cur- 
rent and  introductions  to  other  merchants  in  France. 
Another  correspondent  was  the  Huron  firm  in  Phila- 
delphia, so  it  is  probable  that  Ferdinand  owed  his  em- 
ployment there  to  Benjamin  Bake  well. 

While  Audubon  expressed  himself  at  this  time  as 
freely  in  English  as  in  French,  in  the  former  language 
the  tendencies  of  his  French  tongue  and  the  influence  of 
his  Quaker  friends  were  strangely  blended.  He  never 
bothered  with  accents,  and  took  as  many  liberties  with 
the  spelling  of  French  as  of  English.  Some  of  these 
lapses  are  purely  phonetic,  while  others  are  more  orig- 
inal, as  "schacket"  for  "packet,"  "fither"  for  "Fisher"; 
two  variations  of  Rozier's  name  and  of  Nantes  occur 
in  the  same  letter.  It  should  be  remembered,  however, 
that  at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  bad  or 
random  spelling  was  a  very  venial  offense,  which  gen- 
tlemen of  quality,  or  even  scholars,  could  commit  with 
impunity.  In  this  respect  Audubon's  early  essays  in 
English  would  probably  compare  favorably  with  Gib- 
bon's youthful  French. 

and  each  also  bears  an  outside  seal  in  wax,  stamped  with  Bakewell's 
initial  (B).  It  is  not  possible  to  say  whether  Lieutenant  Audubon  ever 
received  these  letters  of  his  son;  if  received,  it  is  not  very  obvious  why 
they  should  have  been  left  in  the  old  merchant's  hands,  unless  his  ill  health 
at  the  time,  and  subsequent  death  were  the  cause  (see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  152). 
I  am  further  indebted  to  Mr.  William  Beer,  for  the  perusal  of  his  copies, 
which  have  been  followed  to  a  large  extent. 

Since  all  of  these  early  letters  throw  an  interesting  light  upon  the 
times  as  well  as  upon  Audubon's  personal  history,  we  shall  give  them  in 
full,  rendering  the  French  into  English  as  literally  as  practicable. 


156      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

John  James  Audubon  to  Claude  Francois  Rozler 
[Letter  No.  1,  addressed] 
M.  FR.  ROZIER, 

Merchant-Nantes. 

NEW  YORK,  10  January,  1807. 
DEAR  SIR: 

We  have  had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  by  the  Penelope  your 
consignment  of  20  pieces  of  linen  cloth,  for  which  we  send  our 
thanks.  As  soon  as  we  have  sold  them,  we  shall  take  great 
pleasure  in  making  our  return. 

I  am  truly  sorry  that  you  had  not  received  any  letters  from 
us  when  you  wrote,  and  I  am  also  very  disconsolate  at  having 
no  news  from  my  good  father.  You  did  us  a  most  acceptable 
service  in  making  us  acquainted  with  your  friends  in  different 
parts  of  France,  and  in  offering  to  send  us  such  goods  as  you 
shall  deem  suitable.  Upon  the  same  proposals  I  sent  you  orders 
several  months  ago,  and  did  I  dare,  I  should  tell  you  that  all 
articles  having  much  show  and  little  value  are  the  very  things 
that  are  a  la  mode,  and  these  in  one  hundred  per  cent,  [and] 
I  assure  you  that  we  should  be  very  happy  to  receive  some  small 
consignments.  As  soon  as  we  shall  have  realized  our  funds, 
we  will  make  our  orders,  in  accordance  with  our  means.  Mr. 
Bakewell  has  made  a  great  profit  on  the  consignment  that  you 
made  him  shortly  after  our  arrival.  We  should  be  flattered  by 
another  like  it.  Have  the  kindness  to  write  us  often,  and  to 
send  us  prices  current  as  far  as  possible.  I  hope  that  you 
will  have  had  our  letters  concerning  a  plan  of  business  with 
Mr.  Huron.  If  you  will  have  the  kindness  to  see  him,9  he  can 
communicate  to  you  his  ideas  on  the  subject.  His  plan,  I  be- 
lieve, will  be  advantageous  both  to  you  and  to  us. 

Your  son  is  just  about  to  come  from  Philadelphia,  to  live 
in  New  York  until  there  is  some  news ;  but  we  will  write  you 
more  at  length  by  Capt.  Sammis,  who  brought  us  to  this  coun- 
try. I  even  venture  to  hope  that  you  will  send  back  some 
merchandise  for  us.  Have  the  kindness  to  forward  us  invoices, 

•This  Philadelphia  merchant  was  evidently  in  France  and  intend- 
ing to  visit  Nantes  at  this  time. 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     157 

with  the  goods  consigned  to  us,  in  order  to  avoid  the  penalty 
and  the  expense  of  having  them  taken  to  a  public  warehouse, 
[a  proceeding]  which  is  often  a  great  disadvantage  on  ac- 
count of  the  fees.  Consign  always  to  Mr.  Benjamin  Bakewell, 
who  treats  us,  so  far  as  possible,  as  good  friends. 

Present  my  respects  to  your  family,  and  believe  me  ever 
your  faithful  servant, 

J.  J.  AUDUBON. 

John  James  Audubon  to  Claude  Francois  Rozier 

[Letter  No.  2,  addressed] 
Monsieur  FR.  ROZIER, 
Negociant, 
Nantes. 

Loire  Inferieure. 

NEW  YORK,  April  24,  1807. 
MY  DEAR  SIR: 

I  am  profiting  by  a  good  opportunity  for  Bordeaux  to 
apprise  you  of  the  receipt  of  a  duplicate  of  the  orders  that 
you  gave  us  several  months  ago.  You  will  also  know  that  the 
wines,  consigned  to  Mr.  L.  Huron,  have  arrived  in  this  city 
and  the  insurance  has  been  saved.  Your  son  has  gone  to  the 
spot  [the  dock  in  Philadelphia],  and  by  one  of  his  letters  ad- 
vised me  that  the  60  cases  of  wine  are  sold.  He  tells  me  that 
you  can  count  on  a  net  profit  of  nearly  20  p.  c.  If  it  turns 
out  very  good,  the  remainder  will  not  fail  to  find  a  purchaser. 
Mr.  Le  Ray  has  arrived  and  has  brought  with  him  a  small 
box  of  lace  for  Mr.  Benjamin  Bakewell  here;  it  ought  to  arrive 
in  a  few  days  from  Philadelphia.  Mr.  B.  B.  appeared  satisfied 
with  the  sale  of  his  squared  timber;  he  is  anxious  only  to  see 
the  returns ;  he  is  unhappy  that  the  commerce  of  your  town  with 
this  country  cannot  be  regularly  conducted  except  by  Bor- 
deaux, whence  we  have  vessels  every  month.  As  our  friend, 
Ferdinand,  will  write  you  from  Philadelphia  concerning  Mr. 
Huron,  I  shall  not  enlarge  about  him.  In  several  of  your 
letters  you  intimate  that  if  we  decide  upon  establishing  a  retail 


158      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

shop,  you  can  keep  us  constantly  employed;  our  ideas  upon 
this  subject  are  in  perfect  accord,  and  it  would  be  indeed  a 
pleasure  if  we  could  start  under  the  auspices  and  good  advice 
of  Mr.  Bakewell  here;  objects  well  chosen,  favorably  bought, 
and  shipped  with  care,  are  always  sure  of  meeting  a  good  sale. 
I  venture  to  hope  that  the  ship  La  Jeanne,  Capt.  Sammis,  will 
have  arrived  in  your  port,  and  that  the  Indigoes  shipped  by 
Mr.  Bakewell  will  reach  there  in  time  for  the  sale  of  this 
merchandise,  of  which  I  have  some  fears,  in  view  of  the  sum 
they  have  cost  him. 

We  thank  you  for  the  prices  current  that  you  have  sent 
us.  In  one  of  my  last,  directed  by  way  of  Bordeaux,  I  begged 
you  to  call  on  Mr.  Fleury  Emery  for  a  box  of  seeds,  from 
Martinique  and  from  this  country,  for  you  and  for  my  father. 
This  was  aboard  the  ship,  the  Virginia,  Capt.  Roberts,  from 
this  section.  We  hope  shortly  to  send  you  some  merchandise, 
and  possibly  Mr.  Bakewell  will  profit  by  an  opportunity  that 
we  shall  have  in  a  few  days  for  your  port.  A  little  more  than 
three  weeks  ago  I  was  at  Mill  Grove,  and  I  rented  it  for  a 
year,  being  unable  to  do  better  for  the  present.  Your  son,  now 
in  Philadelphia,  is  trying  to  settle  the  accounts  of  my  father 
with  Mr.  Dacotta  [Dacosta],  who  does  not  easily  forget  the 
role  of  chicaner.  Present,  I  pray  you,  my  respects  and  com- 
pliments to  your  good  family  and  wife,  and  believe  in  me  as 
your  devoted  and  constant 

servant, 

J.  J.  AUDUBON. 
Have  the  kindness  to  deliver  the  enclosed  to  my  good  father. 

The  following  quaint  and  charming  letter,  which 
young  Audubon  enclosed  with  the  preceding  and  un- 
der separate  seal,  but  which  his  "good  father"  may  not 
have  received,  will  be  transcribed  in  full,  without  the 
change  of  a  letter  or  mark.  Lieutenant  Audubon,  who 
was  then  in  his  sixty-third  year,  was  living,  as  we  have 
seen,  at  Coueron,  the  small  river  town  nine  miles  west  of 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     159 

Nantes,  the  center  of  the  mails  for  the  Loire  Inferieure, 
and  came  frequently  to  that  city  to  conduct  his  business 
correspondence. 

John  James  Audubon  to  Jean  Audubon 

[Letter  No.  3,  enclosed  with  No.  2,  addressed] 
JOHN  AUDUBON,  Esq., 

Nantes, 
pr  Bourdeaux 

NEW  YORK  April  fyih  1807 
MY  DEAR  FATHER 

I  send  thee  by  a  good  opportunity,  but  going  to  Bordeaux 
I  deed  send  about  a  month  ago  a  small  Box  containing  some 
very  curious  seeds  &  some  useful  ones  the  whole  was  directed 
to  Mr.  Fleury  Emery  it  was  given  here  to  the  Care  of  Capt.  . 
Roberts  of  the  Virginia  I  do  hope  they  are  now  in  thy  pos- 
session thou  have  been  so  often  disappointed  that  it  always 
pains  me  to  think  that  they  have  been  Miscarried:  thou  shalt 
found  some  of  the  Best  Whatter  Missions  and  Girmonds  Called 
here  St.  Domingo  Schachet10  as  in  a  few  days  I  shall  have 
again  a  good  opportunity  for  Nantz  I  will  send  thee  a  Dupli- 
cate of  the  same  Seeds,  I  have  seen  in  the  News  Paper  that  a 
ship  called  the  Betzey  had  been  in  Nantz  do  make  some  En- 
quiries for  it  there  are  on  board  of  her  Many  Birds  and  a  col- 
lection of  seeds  from  America  for  thee  The  Caps.  .  Me  Dougal ; 
pray  when  thou  answer  to  this  be  kind  enough  to  mantion 
these  little  things.  I  hope  that  the  Jane  Cap.  .  Sammis  as 
reached  your  Port  and  given  thee  some  Turtle  fit  to  be  eaten  in 
soupe.  Mr.  L.  Huron  deed  few  days  ago.  Received  some 
Wines  on  a/c  of  M.  Rozier  and  hits  they  prove  goods11  and 
will  bring  a  good  profit.  Mr.  F.  Rozier  the  son  speaks  of 
going  to  France  some  time  this  summer  he  is  now  near  Mr. 
Huron  at  Philadelphia  and  will  try  while  he  is  there  to  settle 
the  Business  between  M.  .Dacotta  and  thee  M.. Rozier  had 

10  "Of  the   St.   Domingo   packet." 

""Mr.  L.  Huron  did,  a  few  days  ago,  receive  some  wines  on  a/c  of 
M.  Rozier,  and  hopes  they  prove  good,"  etc. 


160       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

shosen  M.  .  Huron  for  arbitrator  but  I  would  not  agree  to  it 
until  M.  .  Miers  fither12  was  to  have  part  in  it.  I  am  now 
waiting  for  an  answer.  I  am  allways  in  Mr.  Benjamin  Bake- 
well's  store  where  I  work  as  much  as  I  can  and  passes  my  days 

3 

happy ;  about  thee  weeks  ago  I  went  to  Mill  Grove  for  a/c  of 
the  latter  and  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing  there  my  Biloved  Lucy 
who  constantly  loves  me  and  makes  me  perfectly  happy.  I  shall 
wait  for  thy  Consent  and  the  one  of  my  good  Mamma  to  Marry 
her.  could  thou  but  see  her  and  thou  wouldst  I  am  sure  be 
pleased  of  the  prudency  of  my  choice;  M. .B.  Bakewell  is  all- 
ways  willing  to  oblige  me  and  will  do  many  things  for  me:  do 
not  participate  the  Ideas  of  M.  Rozier  Going  to  France  to  his 
father  it  would  perhaps  Injure  us  for  a  while.  I  wish  thou 
would  wrights  to  me  ofnor  and  longuely  think  by  thy  self 
how  pleasing  it  is  to  read  a  friend's  letter.  Give  my  love 
to  all  my  friends  and  thine  and  kiss  mamma,  Rosa  and  Brother 
Pigaudeau  13  for  me  I  hope  they  continue  to  be  all  happy, 
do  remember  to  send  me  thy  portrait  in  miniature  dressed  as 
an  officer14  it  will  cost  thee  little  and  will  please  me  much. 
Some  of  thy  hair  and  ask  my  sister  for  the  Music  she  does  not 
want.  I  wish  to  receive  some  letter  from  M.  .  Dorbigny15  whom 
I  have  often  wrighten  and  send  some  curiosities  he  is  yet  to 
answer  to  my  first. 

When  thou  seeist  Mr  Rozier  pray  him  and  try  to  engage 
him  to  send  us  some-goods  then  we  feel  very  inclined  to  set 
up  in  a  retail  store  which  would  do,  us  a  great  deal  of  good. 

"  Miers  Fisher,  for  many  years  Jean  Audubon's  trusted  agent  and 
attorney  in  America.  See  Vol.  I,  p.  100. 

18  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  his  brother-in-law. 

14  That  is  a  miniature  of  an  old  portrait  of  his  father  in  the  uniform 
of  a  lieutenant-commander,  which  with  its  companion,  representing  Mme. 
Jean  Audubon,  his  stepmother,  then  hung  in  the  house  of  "La  Gerbetiere" 
at  Coueron.  The  original  portraits,  which  are  reproduced  facing  page  78, 
measure  23y2  by  18y2  inches,  and  were  painted  probably  between  1801 
and  1806;  they  were  inventoried  in  documents  bearing  date  of  November 
14,  15  and  17,  1821,  shortly  after  Mme.  Jean  Audubon's  death.  They 
were  restored  in  Paris  about  ten  years  ago  for  Monsieur  Lavigne,  to 
whom  I  am  indebted  for  the  photographs  and  this  information. 

"Audubon's  intimate  friend,  see  Vol.  I,  p.  128. 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     161 

I  will  send  him  a  letter  by  this  opportunity — Good  by  farwell 
good  father  believe  me  for  life  thy  most  sincere  friend  be 
well  be  happy 

thy  son 

J.    .   J.    .   AUDUBON 

J'espere  que  tu  pour  a  lire — adieu — adieu. 

John  James  Audubon  to  Claude  Franfois  Rozier 

[Letter  No.  4,  addressed] 
Ma.  Fccis  ROZIER, 

Merct,  Nantes  —  Ocean. 

NEW  YORK,  May  6th,  1807. 
DEAR  SIR: 

I  wrote  you  recently  by  a  ship  going  to  Bordeaux ;  the  let- 
ters were  carefully  intrusted,  and  I  hope  that  they  were  re- 
ceived. I  notified  you  of  the  arrival  of  the  wines  to  the  ad- 
dress of  Mr.  Huron  of  Philadelphia,  and  told  you  that  part 
of  the  cases  were  sold.  Your  son  informed  me  this  morning 
that  wine  of  so  good  quality  ought  never  to  be  exported  in 
cask,  and  that  the  profit  would  have  been  greater  if  the  whole 
had  been  in  case.  Mr.  Benjamin  Bakewell  has  received  the  bill 
of  lading  of  Mess  Gereche  brothers,  and  the  gloves  and  the 
lace  are  at  present  on  the  road  from  Philadelphia  to  this  place ; 
perhaps  we  shall  have  them  tomorrow;  I  am  afraid  that  they 
may  be  dear.  In  several  of  your  letters  to  Ferdinand  you 
speak  of  a  retail  store,  and  my  friend  begs  me  tell  you  that 
nothing  could  suit  us  better  than  that  you  should  have  the 
kindness  to  send  us  enough  [goods]  to  set  up  a  shop  at  once 
on  a  good  footing.  As  soon  as  advised,  we  shall  order  you 
to  stock  it  with  merchandise  of  your  choice.  You  should  have 
already  received  the  bill  of  sale  of  a  bale  of  linen  cloth.  You 
can  judge  that  I  have  learned  to  shave  Messrs  the  Americans, 
since  I  have  been  with  Mr.  B.  B.  In  conscience,  however,  [the 
goods]  have  been  sold  at  one  third  above  their  value.  Should 
you  decide  upon  sending  another  [shipment],  do  not  count  upon 
so  good  a  sale.  You  must  know,  however,  that  I  am  always 


162       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

disposed  to  do  everything  for  your  interests,  and  that  I  shall 
always  seek  to  merit  your  approbation.  Should  you  decide 
to  make  [us]  a  consignment  for  a  retail  shop,  have  the  kind- 
ness to  follow,  point  by  point,  the  following  bill: 

60  doz.  morocco  leather  powder  flasks — green  or  gray, 
copper  mounted,  like  those  that  you  sell  at  the 
shop  for  25  sols  [soldos]. 
60  doz.  d.  d.  of  leather,  mahogany  color,  at  the  same 

price. 

100  boxes  d. 
100  music  boxes,16  in  prices  from  10  to  18  francs,  good 

pieces  and  gay  music. 
100  boxes  of  seal-wafers,  containing  1  gross  each,  assorted 

in  color  [but]  more  of  the  red  than  any  other. 
10  gross  of  small  boxes  of  seal-wafers. 
3  boxes  of  pastels,  good,  well  assorted,  and  chosen  by 
the  sons  of  M.  Belloc ;  more  would  not  return  us 
anything. 

If  you  could  procure  us  good  books  in  English  at  Paris, 
M.  Bakewell  assures  me  [that  we  would  realize]  a  great  profit 
on  them,  and  upon  the  other  articles  as  given  above,  if  well 
chosen.  We  hope  to  sell  Mill  Grove,  and  we  will  credit  you 
with  a  great  part  of  the  profit  in  colonial  merchandise.  It  is 
with  impatience  that  I  await  some  news  of  the  indigo  of  Mr. 
B.  Bakewell.  Have  the  kindness,  I  pray  you,  to  forward  the 
enclosed  letter  to  my  father  as  soon  as  possible,  and  will  you 
take  from  the  ship  Ocean,  the  carrier  of  this  letter,  a  little 
box  [sent]  to  your  address  for  him,  and  will  you  send  this  to 
him  also  ?  Present  my  respects  to  your  ladies ;  accept  mine  and 
those  of  the  Bakewell  family.  Ferdinand  is  well.  I  salute  you, 
and  I  am  your  devoted  friend, 

AUDUBON. 

Herewith  the  bill  of  lading  of  the  box. 
The  captain  did  not  wish  to  make  any 
charge,  and  has  been  perfectly  polite. 

19  "Serinettes,"  the  old  time  music  boxes,  or  bird-organs,  of  Swiss  origin, 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     163 

John  James  Audubon  to  Jean  Audubon 

[Letter  No.  5,  inclosed  with  No.  4,  in  French,  and  addressed] 
Mr.  Fccis  ROZIEE 
Mercht 

Nantes 
pour  Mr.  Audubon  pere 

aussitot  que  possible 
MY  DEAE  FRIEND: 

Thou  wilt  find  herewith  a  bill  of  lading  of  a  small  box  con- 
taining nineteen  species  of  seeds,  a  bottle  of  reptiles  for  Mr. 
Derbigny  [D'Orbigny],  and  some  dried  plants  also  for  the  lat- 
ter. I  will  write  thee  of  Mr.  Kauman,  by  the  ship  Mentor, 
which  is  to  leave  a  little  while  after  this  one.  Adieu,  my  good 
friend!  The  box  will  be  addressed  to  Mr.  Audubon,  Md,17 
Nantes,  with  "American  seeds"  written  above;  besides  two  Bs, 
like  this  which  follows  B.18  The  Capn.  promises  me  to  take  care 

B 

of  it,  and  of  my  letters  also.  If  thou  findest  in  my  letter  any- 
thing which  displeases  thee,  remember  that  I  am  thy  son.  Adieu ! 
Farewell,  my  good  friend !  Thine  for  life. 

J.  J.  AUDUBON. 
NEW  YORK,  May  6,  1807. 

Do  not  forget,  I  pray  thee,  to  send  me  for  the  good  Mrs. 
Bakewell  the  complete  works  of  Mr.  Genlis19  by  the  first  op- 
portunity, and  for  me  an  exact  copy  of  the  departments  of 
France  like  that  which  I  made,  and  which  is  in  thy  cabinet. 
I  wish  thee  to  copy  them  for  my  brother-in-law.20 

that  were  very  popular  in  America  down  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War, 
or  even  later.  They  were  manufactured  at  St.  Croix  as  late  as  1880;  instru- 
ments of  similar  type,  with  dancing  figures,  have  been  adapted  to  the  penny- 
in-the-slot  machines  common  in  Switzerland  to-day. 

"  Marchand,  or  retail  merchant. 

"Initials  of  the  head  of  his  firm,  Benjamin  Bakewell. 

"The  reference  was  to  Mme.  Stephanie-Felicite"  de  Genlis  (1746-1830), 
teacher  of  the  children  of  the  Duke  of  Orleans,  Philippe-Egalitd,  and 
authoress  of  many  works  on  education,  once  popular,  but  now  known  only 
to  the  antiquary  and  the  ragman. 

"Meaning  possibly  his  prospective  brother-in-law,  Thomas  W.  Bake- 
well,  a  fellow  clerk  in  the  office. 


164       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

John  James  Audubon  to  Claude  Francois  Rozier 

[Letter  No.  6,  addressed] 
MONSIEUR  Fccis  ROZIER, 
Merchant 

Nantes 
p.  Brig  Mentor 

NEW  YORK,  May  30th,  180T. 

MR.  FRANCIS  ROZIER, 

Merchant,  Nantes. 
DEAR  SIR: 

By  my  last,  sent  on  board  the  ship  Ocean,  Capt.  Bunken, 
I  apprised  you  of  the  arrival  of  the  gloves  and  lace,  shipped 
by  your  order  at  Rochelle  for  the  account  of  my  good  friend, 
Benj.  Bakewell.  I  can  now  inform  you  of  their  sale,  which 
is  also  advantageous,  although  the  principal  part  was  fine 
and  of  very  great  price.  The  gloves  in  prices  of  £3  #  %& #  D, 
are  what  is  needed  for  this  market  here,  and  especially  if  they 
are  of  any  other  color  than  yellow  or  bottle  green  they  are 
less  apt  to  soil;  further  they  conceal  defects  more,  and  find 
in  consequence  more  purchasers.  The  laces  were  better,  al- 
though there  was  a  heavy  duty.  You  should  know  that  here 
the  extravagance  of  the  women  equals  or  rather  quite  balances 
the  circumspection  of  the  men,  so  that  all  articles  for  women 
should  be  beautiful,  that  is  to  say,  conspicuous.  I  await  with 
a  kind  of  pleasure  the  arrival  of  Cap.  Sammis,  for  although 
I  am  convinced  that  the  indigoes  will  meet  with  no  success 
at  Nantes,  their  return  here  will  compensate  us.  I  am  sorry 
that  I  did  not  order  from  you  some  little  pistols  and  the  guns 
which  would  serve  perfectly.  Believe  nothing  as  to  Mr.  Bake- 
well,  and  be  well  assured  that  he  is  our  friend.  Have  then 
less  fear:  I  hope  shortly  to  consign,  that  is  to  say,  Mr.  B.  B. 
will  consign  for  us,  coffee  and  sugar  from  Martinique  to  your 
address.  Your  son  is  still  at  Philadelphia  with  Mr.  Huron. 
They  have  sold  the  wines  quite  well. 

But  in  truth  I  have  been  astonished  that  Mr.  Huron  did 
not  make  you  an  immediate  return.  I  thank  you  sincerely  for 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     165 

the  little  package  that  you  said  had  been  prepared  for  us.  Be 
sure  that  Mr.  B.  B.  will  aid  us  to  a  sufficient  degree,  and  al- 
ways in  a  way  that  anything  which  you  send  us  will  be  promptly 
returned  in  merchandise  assigned  to  you.  The  land,  which  we 
cannot  sell  without  a  great  disadvantage,  keeps  us  very  short 
of  cash,  and  prevents  us  for  the  moment  from  dealing  on  as 
large  a  scale  as  we  should  desire;  but  with  your  kindness  in 
sending  us  the  materials  for  starting  a  grand  retail  shop  with 
different  articles,  it  will  aid  us  very  much.  As  you  well  say, 
it  is  a  little  unfortunate  that  there  is  no  longer  a  boat  from 
your  port  here. 

I  write  to  my  father  by  the  same  opportunity.  Will  you, 
I  pray,  get  it  to  him  as  soon  as  possible,  and  I  beg  you  to  go 
aboard  for  the  live  birds  for  him  and  for  you. 

Present  my  respects  to  your  good  family,  and  believe  me 
for  ever 

Your  faithful  friend  and 
servant 

AUDUBON. 

I  should  be  very  happy  if  you  would  send  me  a  good  box 
of  pastels,  chosen  by  Mr.  Belloc,  the  younger,  at  2  c  3  Louis.21 

John  James  Audubon  to  Claude  Francois  Rozier 

[Letter  No.  7,  addressed] 
MONSIEUR  FR.  ROZIER, 
Negociant, 
Nantes. 

Loire  Inferieure. 

NEW  YORK,  July  19,  1807. 
DEAR  SIR: 

Mr.  Benjamin  Bakewell  as  well  as  myself  have  received  your 
letters  by  the  Comet,  which  had  a  passage  of  42  days.  We 
have  at  present  in  the  warehouse  a  great  part  of  the  merchan- 
dise of  the  latter  [vessel],  and  in  good  condition;  Mr.  B.  B. 

81  One  Louis  was  equal  to  twenty  francs,  or  four  dollars. 


166       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

appears  to  be  satisfied ;  he  is  about  to  send  some  teas  that  you 
have  ordered  from  him.  It  has  grieved  me  much  to  see  him 
send  a  boat  to  Nantes,  and  not  consigned  to  you,  but  his  rea- 
sons were,  I  believe,  so  sound  that  I  did  not  dare  remonstrate. 
The  agents  of  the  house  of  Rossel  and  Boudet  paid  him  the 
2/3  of  the  invoice,  or  a  draft  upon  London  for  an  equivalent 
sum,  that  neither  Ferdinand  nor  I  were  authorized  to  do;  the 
latter  is  at  Philadelphia.  In  a  short  time  we  are  leaving  for 
a  voyage  upon  the  Ohio,  the  details  of  which  you  will  learn 
[from  him],  or  from  my  father,  and  which  I  believe  will  be 
very  advantageous  to  us.  We  hope  to  sell  Mill  Grove  this 
autumn,  which  we  shall  do,  however,  only  at  a  profit.  We 
received  this  morning  a  letter  from  Mr.  Fleury  Emery,  who 
urges  Mr.  B.  B.  to  give  him  some  shipments,  but  regarding 
this  I  do  not  know  his  intentions.  I  have  also  received  a  letter 
to-day  from  our  friend,  Fd,  who  is  quite  well,  and  longs  to  be 
doing  something. 

Mr.  Emery  advises  me  of  the  receipt  of  a  little  box  of  seeds 
for  my  father  and  you.  I  think  that  your  gardens  are  now 
embellished  with  foreign  trees. 

Mr.  B.  B.  is  loading  tea  for  you,  a  thing  that  gives  me 
much  pleasure.    I  am  sending  you  a  letter  from  Ferdinand  that 
I  received  yesterday.     Presenting  you  as  well  as  your  whole 
amiable  family  with  humble  respects, 
I  continue  to  be 

your  faithful  servant, 

AUDUBON. 

My  regards,  I  pray  to  you,  to  my  cousin,  the  younger. 

Audubon's  loyalty  to  his  kind-hearted  employer  is 
evident  in  every  one  of  these  amiable  letters,  yet  it  is 
plain  that  they  were  written  upon  his  own  initiative,  and 
a  merchant  of  today  might  seriously  object  to  such  a 
candid  exposition  of  his  dealings  as  young  Audubon's 
friendly  epistles  occasionally  revealed. 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     167 

The  numerous  references  which  these  letters  con- 
tain regarding  the  disposition  of  the  "Mill  Grove"  farm 
may  well  puzzle  the  reader  who  has  followed  the  story 
to  this  point;  we  must  therefore  attempt  to  unravel  the 
tangled  threads  of  this  intricate  affair.  In  the  spring 
of  1807  Audubon,  who  was  then  anxious  to  start  a 
"retail  shop,"  complained  that  the  land,  which  could  not 
be  sold  to  advantage,  kept  them  short  of  capital  and 
prevented  them  from  dealing  on  so  large  a  scale  as 
they  could  wish.  On  the  24th  of  April  he  wrote  that 
three  weeks  before  he  had  gone  to  "Mill  Grove"  and 
closed  an  agreement  for  renting  the  property  (evidently 
referring  to  the  farm  as  distinct  from  the  mine)  for  a 
year,  being  unable  to  do  better,  and  that  Ferdinand  was 
then  in  Philadelphia  trying  to  settle  his  father's  accounts 
with  Dacosta,  who  did  not  readily  forget  his  trickster's 
role.  In  Audubon's  letter  of  the  same  day,  inclosed  in 
the  same  packet  with  the  request  that  it  be  delivered 
to  his  father,  there  is  a  similar  reference,  with  the  note 
that  Ferdinand,  who  had  charge  of  the  settlement,  had 
chosen  Mr.  Huron  as  arbitrator,  but  that  he  would  not 
agree  unless  honest  Miers  Fisher  had  a  part  in  it. 
Finally,  as  late  as  the  19th  of  July  of  that  year  he 
wrote  to  Rozier,  the  elder,  that  they  were  hoping  to  sell 
"Mill  Grove"  in  the  autumn,  but  would  do  so  only  at  a 
good  profit;  yet  at  this  time  the  property  had  been 
out  of  their  possession,  technically  at  least,  for  nearly 
a  year. 

Still  more  curious  is  this  statement  in  Audubon's 
autobiography,22  relating  to  the  year  1813;  "I  bought  a 
wild  horse,  and  on  its  back  travelled  over  Tennessee  and 
a  portion  of  Georgia,  and  so  round  till  I  finally  reached 

22  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i, 


168       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Philadelphia,  and  then  to  your  grandfather's  at  Fatland 
Ford.  He  had  sold  my  plantation  of  Mill  Grove  to 
Samuel  Wetherill,  of  Philadelphia,  for  a  good  round 
sum,  and  with  this  I  returned  through  Kentucky  and 
at  last  reached  Henderson  once  more." 

When  "Mill  Grove"  was  conditionally  sold  to 
Dacosta  and  his  mining  company  in  September,  1806, 
he  gave  a  mortgage  and  bond  to  Miers  Fisher,  who 
again  became  Lieutenant  Audubon's  agent.  Many 
months  elapsed  before  the  necessary  legal  papers  could 
arrive  from  France,  and  meanwhile  Dacosta's  year- 
ly accounts  were  contested,  and  gave  no  end  of  trou- 
ble.23 

After  operating  the  lead  mine  for  five  years,  Da- 
costa's company  failed,  and  "Mill  Grove"  again  passed 
into  other  hands;  it  was  finally  sold  to  Samuel  Wetherill 

"Especially  his  account  current,  from  June  1,  1806,  to  July  25,  1807, 
with  the  "Mill  Grove"  farm,  and  "John  Audubon  of  Nantz,"  drawn  up 
and  signed  at  Philadelphia  on  the  latter  date.  Dacosta  then  claimed  a 
balance  due  him  of  $950.64  above  the  returns  from  farm  and  mine,  of 
which  he  was  entitled  to  one-half;  this  sum  included  his  salary  and 
numerous  minor  expenditures.  When  his  account  was  contested  and  taken 
out  of  court  for  settlement,  it  was  cut  by  the  arbitrators  to  $530.  See 
Appendix  I,  Document  11  a. 

The  following  is  a  "copy  of  the  Award  given  by  John  Laval  & 
Laurence  Huron  appointed  referees  by  Francis  Dacosta  and  John  Audubon 
the  elder  by  a  rule  of  reference  in  the  Common  Pleas  of  this  county  to 
have  their  differences  in  accounts  settled:" 

"We  the  within  named  referees,  having  heard  the  parties  and  examined 
their  respective  accounts  &  vouchers,  do  award  that  there  is  due  by  the 
defendant,  John  Audubon  the  elder,  to  the  plaintiff,  Francis  Dacosta,  the 
sum  of  five  hundred  and  thirty  dollars,  which  we  find  to  be  the  full 
balance  of  all  current  accounts  between  them,  and  we  award  that  the 
said  ballance  be  paid  by  the  said  John  Audubon  the  elder  to  the  said 
Francis  Dacosta  by  defalking  the  same  from  the  account  of  the  condition 
of  the  Bond  of  Eight  Hundred  Dollars — mentioned  in  the  within  rule 
of  reference  conformably  to  the  agreement  endorsed  on  the  said  Bond." 

"Witness   our  hands   Philadelphia   1st   August,   1807." 

"Signed— JOHN  LAVAL." 

"LAURENCE    HURON." 

(Copy  of  original  MS.,  in  possession  of  Mr.  Welton  H.  Rozier.) 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     169 

in  1813.24  If  our  inferences  are  correct,  the  mortgages 
by  which  the  Audubon  and  Rozier  interests  were  pro- 
tected were  repeatedly  transferred,  and  the  first  consid- 
erable amount  of  ready  money  that  had  appeared  in  the 
entire  series  of  transactions  was  furnished  by  Mr. 
Wetherill.  It  is  doubtful  if  Jean  Audubon  ever  re- 
ceived any  returns  from  his  American  farm  after  the 
advent  of  Dacosta  in  1803.  The  ultimate  failure  of  the 
lead  mine  was  assuredly  not  the  fault  of  this  exploiter, 
but  his  dubious  methods  of  accounting  and  probable 
failure  to  keep  his  contracts  no  doubt  led  the  naturalist 
to  denounce  him  as  a  swindler. 

It  may  be  recalled  that  in  their  "Articles  of  Asso- 
ciation" Audubon  and  Rozier  had  agreed  that  the  house 
at  "Mill  Grove"  should  be  "an  object  separate  from  all 
business,  in  order  that  we  may  control  this  property  as 
long  as  we  desire,"  but  the  conditional  sale  to  Dacosta 
apparently  included  the  farmhouse  as  well  as  the  land. 

Many  of  Audubon's  references  to  "Mill  Grove" 
were  apparently  wide  of  the  mark,  but  viewed  in  the 
light  which  we  have  endeavored  to  shed  upon  this  in- 
volved affair,  they  would  be  in  harmony  with  the  essen- 
tial truth ;  in  writing  to  the  elder  Rozier,  who  became  a 
partner  in  the  enterprise,  there  was  no  motive  which 
could  have  led  him  to  depart  from  it.25 

24  In  1811  "Mill  Grove"  was  conveyed  by  Francis  Dacosta  &  Company, 
to  Frederick   Beates,  who   in    1813   sold   it   to   Samuel   Wetherill,  Jr.,    for 
$7,000,  the  property  having  shrunk  to  less  than  one-half  the  value  placed 
upon  it  in  1806.     For  the  enterprises  of  the  Wetherills,  see  Note,  Vol.  I, 
p.  102. 

25  Since  we  have  been  obliged  to  enter  rather  minutely  into  the  his- 
tory of  "Mill  Grove,"  in  order  to  trace  the  relations  of  the  Audubons  to 
it  in   an  important   period  of  the  naturalist's   career,  the  reader  may  be 
interested   in   the  anticlimax   which   its    famous   mines   reached   at   a  later 
day.     The    Ecton    Consolidated    Mining   Company    had   been    in    operation 
at  "Mill  Grove"  for  a  considerable  period,  when,  in  1848,  the  Perkioming 
Association  was   formed   and   ten  thousand   dollars   was   at   once   invested 
in   machinery.      In    1851    these   two    companies    were   combined   under   the 


170       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

We  will  now  return  to  the  story  of  Audubon's  life 
in  New  York.  While  he  was  supposed  to  be  learning 
the  exporting  business  with  Benjamin  Bakewell,  his 
heart  was  in  the  woods  and  fields,  and  every  hour  that 
could  be  snatched  from  the  counting-room  found  him 
in  the  pursuit  of  birds  or  drawing  their  portraits.  He 
used  the  pencil  and  black  crayon  point  combined  with 
pastels,  and  while  much  of  his  artistic  work  at  this  time 
was  hastily  done,  he  was  capable  of  producing  excellent 
likenesses.  A  very  delicate  drawing  of  the  Wood 
Thrush,  signed  with  his  initials,  and  dated  at  "Mill 
Grove,  Pennsylvania,  14  aout,  1806,"  is  numbered  209, 
showing  that  his  collection  of  American  birds  was  al- 
ready extensive,  even  if  it  did  not  include  many  that 
were  well  known.  In  the  winter  of  1806-7,  while  in 
New  York,  Audubon  paid  most  attention  to  the  water- 
fowl, frequently  visiting  the  shore  and  the  markets  for 
his  subjects.  The  sketches  which  he  then  made  were 
all  in  full  size,  and,  as  an  evidence  of  the  rapidity  with 
which  he  worked,  it  may  be  noticed  that  he  would  often 


name  of  the  Perkioming  Consolidated  Mining  Company,  which  issued 
50,000  shares  of  stock,  at  six  dollars  each,  thus  representing  a  capital  of 
$300,000.  A  mining  settlement  quickly  sprang  up  on  Audubon's  old  farm, 
where  numerous  buildings  of  stone,  a  general  store,  and  miners'  houses 
were  to  be  seen.  In  the  first  annual  statement  issued  by  this  company, 
the  buildings  were  said  to  represent  an  outlay  of  $15,000,  while  $140,000 
had  been  expended  on  machinery,  both  above  and  below  ground.  A  Cornish 
expert,  who  was  summoned  from  England,  was  paid  $1,414  for  a  verbose 
report,  the  substance  of  which,  it  was  said,  was  expressed  in  conveying 
the  information,  already  known,  that  the  "mineral  mined  is  copper  ore" 
(copper  pyrite  occurring  in  association  with  lead).  This  company  closed 
its  business  in  1851,  by  assessing  its  stockholders  one  dollar  a  share, 
thus  bringing  the  total  loss  in  this  final  effort  to  $350,000,  nearly  one- 
third  of  which  had  been  drawn  from  Philadelphia.  After  one,  or  two, 
further  unsuccessful  attempts  had  been  made,  all  the  substantial  build- 
ings of  the  mining  works  became  a  quarry,  from  which  stone  was  sold 
by  the  perch,  the  ruins  of  the  old  engine  house  alone  remaining  to  this 
day  as  a  witness  of  the  follies  of  the  generations  that  are  gone.  (This 
accQunt  is  based  upon  reports  which  have  appeared  in  the  press  of  Philadel- 
phia or  in  other  Pennsylvania  newspapers.) 


FIRST  VENTURES  IN  BUSINESS     171 

complete  two  or  more  large  drawings  of  ducks  on  the 
same  day.  New  York  at  this  time  was  a  city  of  about 
75,000  people;  Audubon  said  that  by  walking  briskly 
he  could  pass  from  one  end  to  the  other  in  a  few  minutes. 
In  the  foregoing  letters  we  have  seen  young  Audu- 
bon sending  seeds  and  live  birds  to  his  father  and  to 
Fran9ois  Rozier,  and  reptiles  and  dried  plants  to 
Charles  d'Orbigny,  and  ordering  for  his  own  use  the 
best  drawing  materials  from  France.  While  at  New 
York  he  had  the  good  fortune  to  become  a  friend  and 
protege  of  the  most  distinguished  naturalist  of  the  me- 
tropolis, Dr.  Samuel  L.  Mitchell,26  eminent  in  many 
walks  of  life,  and  at  that  time  a  member  of  the  United 
States  Senate.  Audubon  prepared  many  birds  and 
mammals  for  Dr.  Mitchell's  collections,  and  the  friend- 
ship thus  early  formed  proved  of  much  service  to  him 
later.  He  was  probably  working  for  Dr.  Mitchell  when, 
as  the  story  goes,  some  of  his  neighbors  lodged  a  com- 
plaint with  the  municipal  authorities  on  account  of  the 
strong  odors  that  habitually  issued  from  his  workroom, 
and  a  constable  was  sent  to  investigate. 

"Samuel  Latham  Mitchell  (1764-1831),  physician,  naturalist,  politician 
and  voluminous  writer  on  many  subjects.  In  1797  he  founded,  in  asso- 
ciation with  Dr.  Edward  Miller  and  Dr.  Elihu  H.  Smith,  the  New  York 
Medical  Repository,  and  was  its  chief  editor.  He  began  also,  at  the 
University  of  New  York,  one  of  the  earliest  collections  in  natural  history, 
and  in  1817  appealed  to  the  Historical  Society  of  his  city  for  the  founda- 
tion of  a  Zoological  Museum;  in  the  same  year  he  organized  the  Lyceum 
of  Natural  History,  and  was  its  first  president,  Joseph  Le  Conte  serving 
as  corresponding  secretary,  and  John  Torrey  as  one  of  its  curators.  On 
April  9,  the  following  subjects  were  assigned  to  different  members  for  in- 
vestigation, "Ichthyology  or  fishes,  Plaxology  or  crustaceous  animals, 
Apalology  or  mollusca,  and  Geology  or  the  earth"  being  reserved  for  the 
president;  Samuel  Constantine  Rafinesque  (see  Chapter  XIX)  took  charge 
of  "Helmintology  or  worms,  Polypoligy  or  polyps,  Atmology  or  Meteorology, 
Hydrology  or  waters,  and  Taxodomy  or  classification;"  John  Torrey,  who 
became  a  distinguished  botanist,  was  more  modest,  and  assumed  charge  only 
of  "Entomology  or  insects;"  while  to  John  Le  Conte  were  given 
"Mastodology  or  mammalia,  Erpetology  or  reptiles,  and  Glossology  or 
nomenclature."  See  the  American  Monthly  Magazine  and  Critical  Review 
(New  York)  for  August,  1817,  p.  272. 


172       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Audubon  remained  in  New  York  as  late  as  August 
22,  1807,  for  on  that  day  he  made  a  drawing  of  the 
"Sprig-tail  Duck,"  but  without  doubt  he  had  come  to 
feel  the  incongruity  of  his  position  in  a  business  to 
which  his  heart  was  a  stranger.  As  an  instance  of  his 
preoccupation  at  this  time,  he  confesses  to  have  once 
forwarded  but  forgot  to  seal  a  letter  containing  $8,000. 
If  Benjamin  Bakewell  failed  to  make  a  business  man 
out  of  Audubon,  it  was  not  from  lack  of  kindness,  and 
probably  no  one  else  would  have  been  more  successful. 
As  it  happened,  Audubon  did  not  leave  his  employer 
any  too  soon,  for  at  the  close  of  1807  Benjamin  Bake- 
well's  exporting  business  was  ruined  by  the  Embargo 
Act,  through  which  President  Jefferson  had  hoped  to 
bring  Great  Britain  and  France  to  terms  by  cutting  off 
their  American  trade,  and  for  a  year  or  more  his  estate 
was  in  the  hands  of  creditors  for  settlement. 

The  naturalist  has  left  a  characteristic  sketch  of 
himself  at  this  time:  "I  measured,"  said  he,  "five  feet, 
ten  and  one  half  inches,  was  of  fair  mien,  and  quite  a 
handsome  figure;  large,  dark,  and  rather  sunken  eyes, 
light-colored  eyebrows,  aquiline  nose  and  a  fine  set  of 
teeth ;  hair,  fine  texture  and  luxuriant,  divided  and  pass- 
ing down  behind  each  ear  in  luxuriant  ringlets  as  far 
as  the  shoulders."  The  habit  of  wearing  his  hair  long, 
thus  early  acquired  and  later  favored  by  his  wandering 
mode  of  life,  appears  to  have  lasted  more  than  twenty 
years. 


CHAPTER   XII 

EARLY  DRAWINGS  IN  FRANCE  AND  AMERICA 

Child  and  man — His  ideals,  perseverance  and  progress — Study  under  David 
at  Paris — David's  pupils  and  studios — David  at  Nantes  arouses  the 
enthusiasm  of  its  citizens — His  part  in  the  Revolution — His  art  and 
influence  over  Audubon — Audubon's  drawings  of  French  birds — Story 
of  the  Edward  Harris  collection — The  Birds  of  America  in  the  bud — 
Audubon's  originality,  style,  methods,  and  mastery  of  materials  and 
technique — His  problem  and  how  he  solved  it — His  artistic  defects. 

Audubon  began  to  draw  birds  and  other  animals 
when  a  child,  and,  like  most  children,  was  ready  to  be- 
lieve that  his  crude  sketches  were  finished  pictures  if 
only  they  possessed  some  sort  of  a  head,  a  tail,  and  sticks 
in  place  of  legs.  But,  unlike  the  majority  of  youth,  he 
went  direct  to  nature  for  his  subjects,  and  his  "family 
of  cripples"  failed  to  satisfy  him  long.  He  gradually 
developed  a  high  ideal,  and  at  an  early  age  felt  stirring 
within  him  the  impulse  and  the  power  to  express  it. 
On  stated  anniversaries  his  masterpieces,  he  tells  us, 
were  burned,  in  spite  of  the  praise  and  flattery  they  had 
evoked ;  he  would  then  exert  all  his  powers  to  do  better, 
and  this  commendable  practice  was  kept  up  for  years. 

In  this  respect  the  child  was  father  of  the  man,  for 
on  the  5th  of  March,  1822,  when  Audubon  was  living 
in  New  Orleans,  too  poor  to  buy  even  a  blank-book  for 
a  journal,  he  thus  wrote  of  his  work  during  the  pre- 
vious months:  "Every  moment  I  had  to  spare  I  drew 
birds  for  my  ornithology,  in  which  my  Lucy  and  myself 
alone  have  faith.  February  was  spent  in  drawing  birds 

173 


174       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

strenuously,  and  I  thought  I  had  improved  by  apply- 
ing coats  of  water-color  under  the  pastels,  thereby  pre- 
venting the  appearance  of  the  paper,  that  in  some  in- 
stances marred  my  best  productions.  I  discovered  also 
many  imperfections  in  my  earlier  drawings,  and  formed 
the  resolution  to  redraw  the  whole  of  them."  Seldom 
satisfied  with  the  results  attained,  he  kept  up  this  labori- 
ous process  of  revision  and  selection  by  which  he  ap- 
proached more  closely  to  his  ideal,  the  truth  of  living  na- 
ture, for  more  than  forty  years,  until,  in  fact,  the  last 
plates  of  his  Birds  of  America  came  from  the  press  in 
England  in  1838.  An  examination  of  the  originals  of 
those  plates  today  *  proves  that  many  of  their  defects 
were  inevitably  caused  by  the  makeshifts  to  which  he 
was  sometimes  forced  by  lack  of  time. 

Audubon  has  credited  his  father  with  the  only  judi- 
cious criticism  which  he  ever  received  at  the  youthful 
stage  of  his  art.  "He  was  so  kind  to  me,"  said  the  son, 
"that  to  have  listened  lightly  to  his  words  would  have 
been  highly  ungrateful.  I  listened  less  to  others  and 
more  to  him,  and  his  words  became  my  law."  When  he 
was  about  seventeen  years  old,  or  probably  not  far 
from  the  year  1802,2  he  was  sent  to  Paris  to  study  draw- 
ing under  Jacques  Louis  David,  the  acknowledged 
leader  of  French  art  during  the  period  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. This  popular  artist,  who  had  uttered  fierce  invec- 
tives against  "the  last  five  despots  of  France,"  became 
nevertheless  court  painter  under  Napoleon;  like 
many  another  Conventional  regicide,  he  was  destined 


1  See  Vol.  I,  p.  185. 

aCuvier  stated  in  his  report  on  Audubon's  Birds,  delivered  at  the 
Academy  of  Sciences,  Paris,  September  22,  1828,  that  the  author  had  been 
twenty-five  years  before  a  pupil  in  the  school  of  David.  This  would 
place  the  date  in  1803,  but  earlier  than  the  autumn  of  that  year,  when 
Audubon  started  for  America.  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  99. 


EARLY   UNPUBLISHED   DRAWINGS   OF  FRENCH    HIRDS:   AMOVE,  EUROPEAN    CHOW   WITH 

HIM)   OF  ROOK,   "LE    CORBEAU   OU   CORNEILLE    NOIRE    DE    UTFFON,    i:\CI.ISlt 

CHOW,   EN    COMPAGNE    ATToril    1)1!    NXNTIIS,   GHOI.E    PETITE    GKOI.E    NO. 

155;"  DETAIL,  "HEC  m:  i.\  M(\<;ON\I:  or  ntrrx  HI  i TON  — HF.C 
OF  TIIK  JAH;  DAW  NO.  lfi(5;"  BELOW,  WHITE  WAGTAIL,  "LA 

LAVANI)Ii:Ui:    I)E    Hl'FFON.       WAG-TAIL,    WHATTEB 
\\.\C-T.\II,,   WHITE   WHATTEK    WAG  TAIL    COM- 
MON DISH   \\  \sin:n.  -i  in:  22  OF  DECEM- 
BER,   1805.       NEAR    NANTX, 
NO.   65." 


Published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y.  Jc.-uu's. 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  175 

to  end  his  career  as  an  exile  from  France,  and  died  in 
Brussels  in  1825. 

Audubon  has  said  but  little  of  this  Paris  experience, 
but  he  remarked:  "At  the  age  of  seventeen  when  I  re- 
turned from  France,  whither  I  had  gone  to  receive  the 
rudiments  of  my  education,  my  drawings  had  assumed 
a  form.  David  had  guided  my  hand  in  tracing  objects 
of  large  size."  An  interesting  sidelight  is  thrown  upon 
this  incident  by  the  fact  that,  not  many  years  before, 
David  had  been  warmly  welcomed  in  the  city  of  Nantes, 
when  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  naturalist's  father  was 
one  of  the  throng  of  citizens  who  made  his  acquaintance. 
The  occasion  to  which  I  refer  was  so  noteworthy  in  the 
annals  of  Audubon's  paternal  city  as  to  make  a  digres- 
sion at  this  point  of  our  narrative  inevitable.  In  March, 
1790,  Daniel  de  Kervegan,  a  wealthy  merchant  who  was 
then  serving  his  second  term  as  mayor,  had  aroused  so 
much  enthusiasm  by  his  public  spirit  and  sterling  char- 
acter that  the  citizens  had  voted  the  sum  of  300  livres, 
or  about  $60,  for  his  portrait,  to  be  executed  in  oils 
and  placed  in  one  of  their  public  buildings.  The  com- 
mission was  offered  to  David,  who  accepted  it,  and  with 
such  enthusiasm  did  he  set  to  work,  that  upon  reaching 
Nantes  he  asked  the  privilege  of  paying  his  respects 
to  the  Municipal  Assembly,  which  was  in  session.  Upon 
being  admitted  to  the  Chamber,  on  the  24th  of  March, 
he  expressed  these  sentiments : 

If  ever  my  art  has  brought  me  any  gratification,  or  any 
success,  never  before  have  I  had  better  excuse  for  boastful- 
ness. 

I  have  made  it  a  duty  to  respond  to  the  worthy  invitations, 
inspired  by  patriotism  and  gratitude,  that  hallow  this  most 
timely  and  most  astounding  revolution. 

8  Ornithological  Biography    (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  viii. 


176       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

It  is  jour  work,  gentlemen,  and  the  respect  which  you  render 
to  the  chief  of  your  administration  which  speaks  in  praise  of 
your  sentiments  and  virtues  and  which  will  transmit  their 
memory,  along  with  your  glory,  to  posterity.4 

David  worked  on  this  portrait  for  about  a  month, 
and  on  April  23,  before  his  departure  for  Paris,  he 
asked  the  privilege  of  again  addressing  the  Assembly. 
Not  only  was  the  request  granted,  but  he  was  publicly 
thanked  for  the  trouble  he  had  taken  in  coming  to  their 
city,  and  a  committee  was  appointed  to  express  the 
sentiments  of  esteem  with  which  he  had  inspired  the 
whole  community.  We  may  add  that  David  seems  to 
have  taken  this  canvas  to  his  studio  in  Paris,  where  it 
was  subsequently  lost  or  destroyed  in  the  period  of 
turbulence  that  followed. 

David's  radical  speeches  from  the  tribune,  added  to 
his  popularity  as  an  artist,  no  doubt  brought  him  pupils 
in  plenty  from  every  quarter  of  republican  France. 
Young  Audubon  was  probably  admitted  to  the  most 
elementary  class,  for  he  received  no  instruction  in  the 
use  of  oils  but  was  directed  to  study  the  rudiments  of 
drawing  from  the  cast.  As  he  had  hoped  to  perfect 
himself  in  the  art  of  depicting  animals,  he  was  disap- 
pointed. "Eyes  and  noses  belonging  to  giants,"  he 
said,  "and  heads  of  horses,  represented  in  ancient  sculp- 
ture, were  my  models."  He  also  spoke  of  drawing 
"heads  and  figures  in  different  colored  chalks,"  and  of 
"tolerable  figures"  obtained  by  use  of  the  manikin,  but 
adds:  "These,  although  fit  subjects  for  men  intent  on 
pursuing  the  higher  branches  of  the  art,  were  immedi- 


*F.  T.  Verger,  Archives  curieuses  de  la  mile  de  Nantes  et  des 
departements  de  I'ouest  (Nantes,  1837-41);  for  further  references  to  David 
in  this  chapter  I  am  mainly  indebted  to  Georges  Cain,  Le  Long  des 
Rues  (Paris,  1812),  and  Charles  Saunier,  Louis  David  (Paris,  no  date). 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  177 

ately  laid  aside  by  me";  yet  he  "returned  to  the  woods 
of  the  New  World  with  fresh  ardor,"  5  and  there  began 
a  series  of  drawings  which  were  later  published. 

While  this  is  virtually  all  that  has  been  recorded  of 
this  incident  in  Audubon's  career,  a  number  of  inter- 
esting facts  might  be  added  which  throw  light  upon 
the  surroundings  of  his  life  at  Paris  while  under  the 
tuition  of  this  master.  At  that  time  David  was  enjoy- 
ing the  privilege,  accorded  to  eminent  artists  from  an 
early  day,  of  living  with  his  family  and  of  having  his 
studios  in  special  quarters  set  apart  for  the  purpose  in 
the  palace  of  the  Louvre;  this  was  continued  until  all 
the  artist  tenants  were  turned  out  by  one  of  Napoleon's 
peremptory  orders  in  1806.  David's  principal  studio 
was  at  the  corner  of  the  Quai  de  Louvre  and  the  square, 
facing  the  church  of  St.  Germain  1'Auxerrois,  at  a 
point  occupied  in  the  present  structure  by  the  grand 
staircase  leading  to  the  Egyptian  Gallery.  It  was  here 
that  his  more  advanced  pupils  studied;  the  appearance 
of  its  interior,  with  his  pupils  at  work,  as  well  as  the 
view  from  one  of  its  windows,  by  means  of  which  its 
exact  position  can  be  determined,  may  be  seen  today 
in  the  interesting  painting  by  Matthew  Cochereau. 
This  small  picture,  first  exhibited  in  the  salon  of  1814, 
now  hangs  in  the  Louvre  in  company  with  some  of  the 
finest  of  David's  works,  and  immediately  beneath  his 
huge  canvas  representing  the  coronation  of  Napoleon. 
Over  his  principal  room  David  had  also  a  private  studio, 
and  at  one  time  he  had  another  on  the  Quai,  opposite 
the  Institute  of  France,  while  his  numerous  pupils  occu- 
pied a  series  of  rooms,  one  above  another,  not  remote 

5  The  implication  as  to  time,  which  is  repeated  above,  contradicts  an 
earlier  statement,  which  is  probably  more  nearly  correct,  for  when  Audubon 
returned  to  America  in  1806  he  was  twenty-one. 


178       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

from  the  first.  Access  to  these  apartments  was  gained 
from  the  street  by  means  of  a  spiral  stairway,  the  open- 
ing of  which  may  still  be  seen  in  the  Egyptian  Hall. 

It  is  common  to  speak  of  this  gifted  man  as  if  he 
alone  had  stifled  all  the  art  of  the  eighteenth  century 
in  France,  as  if  he  were  the  molder  of  his  age  and  not 
a  part  of  it.  Too  often  has  he  been  judged  on  the 
basis  of  a  few,  unfortunately  conspicuous,  theatrical 
pieces,  while  his  excellent  portraits,  of  which  there  are 
many,  entitle  him  to  the  gratitude  of  posterity. 
Buchanan  remarked  that  the  mannerism  of  David  could 
"still  be  traced  in  certain  pedantries  discernible  in 
Audubon's  style  of  drawing,"  which  is  a  fancy  without 
any  basis  in  fact.  If  it  could  be  shown  that  drawing 
from  the  casts  of  antique  statues  could  develop  man- 
nerisms in  the  careful  delineation  of  birds  and  mammals, 
it  would  still  appear  that  Audubon's  style  was  really 
formed  at  a  later  period. 

This  brief  Paris  episode,  which  at  most  could  have 
lasted  but  a  few  months,  represented  all  the  formal 
instruction  which  Audubon  ever  received  in  drawing, 
although  he  enjoyed  some  private  tuition  at  a  much 
later  day.  As  to  the  sciences  now  embraced  in  biology, 
that  is,  zoology  and  botany,  which  would  have  been 
most  useful  to  him,  the  score  was  blank;  even  books  on 
any  of  these  subjects  were  rare  in  America  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  nineteenth  century. 

When  Audubon  first  came  to  the  United  States,  he 
brought  with  him  all  his  drawings  of  French  birds,  and 
a  few  pieces  which  may  belong  to  this  early  period  have 
been  described.6  Done  in  a  combination  of  crayon  and 
water  color,  they  represent  a  European  Magpie,  a  Coot 

*See  R.  W.  Shufeldt,  in  The  Auk  and  the  Audubonian  Magazine 
(Bibliography,  Nos.  184  and  190). 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  179 

and  a  Green  Woodpecker,  the  latter  especially,  which 
bore  the  number  "96,"  showing  evidence  of  care  and 
skill.  The  year  passed  at  "Mill  Grove"  was  not  par- 
ticularly fruitful,  but  during  the  Coueron  visit  which 
followed  in  1805  and  1806,  Audubon  said  that  he  made 
drawings  of  "about  two  hundred  species  of  birds,"  all 
of  which  he  brought  to  America  and  gave  to  his  Lucy. 
After  finally  reaching  this  country  in  the  latter  year, 
these  studies  were  continued,  with  an  alacrity  that  sel- 
dom failed,  until  1822,  when  he  began  to  revise  much 
of  his  earlier  work,  substituting  water  colors  more  com- 
pletely for  pastels,  pencil  and  crayon  point. 

In  writing  to  Bachman  in  1836,  Audubon  thus 
referred  to  the  work  of  his  apprenticeship:  'Some  of 
my  early  drawings  of  European  birds  are  still  in  our 
possession,  but  many  have  been  given  away,  and  the 
greatest  number  were  destroyed,  not  by  the  rats  that 
gnawed  my  collection  of  the  'Birds  of  America/  but 
by  the  great  fire."  7  When  the  naturalist  was  in  Phila- 
delphia in  1824,  in  search  of  a  publisher  and  sadly  in 
need  of  funds,  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Edward 
Harris,8  who  looked  at  the  drawings  he  had  for  sale 
and  said  at  once  that  he  would  take  them  all  and  at 
Audubon's  own  prices.  Upon  his  leaving  that  city,  this 
generous  friend,  we  are  told,  pressed  a  $100  bill  in  his 
hand,  saying:  "Mr.  Audubon,  accept  this  from  me; 
men  like  you  ought  not  to  want  for  money."  "I  could 
only  express  my  gratitude,"  continues  the  naturalist, 
"by  insisting  on  his  receiving  the  drawings  of  all  my 
French  birds."  The  worthy  Harris  cherished  this  large 
series  of  Audubon's  early  studies  and  added  to  it  many 
specimens  of  his  later  work.  The  entire  collection  re- 

T  Referring  to  the  fire  of  1835,  in  New  York. 
"See  Chapter  XXI. 


180       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

mained  in  his  family  unbroken  and  unimpaired  until 
1892.9 

This  beautiful  and  unique  collection,  which  repre- 
sents The  Birds  of  America  in  the  bud,  illustrates  the 
development  of  Audubon's  art  from  about  1800  or  a 
little  later  to  1821,10  and  clearly  shows  that  the  fuller 
mastery  which  he  attained  after  the  latter  date  was 
manifested  in  no  small  degree  at  a  much  earlier  period. 
His  drawings  of  the  Wood  Thrush  (1806),  the  Whip- 
poorwill  and  Kingfisher  (1810),  the  Carolina  Parrot 
(1811),  and  the  Nighthawk  (1812),  though  detached 
and  less  ambitious  as  pictures,  for  truth  of  line  and  deli- 
cacy of  finish  would  compare  favorably  with  the  best  of 
his  later  work.  After  1820  his  ability  had  so  far  out- 
stripped his  ambition  that  there  was  needed  only  the 
stimulus  of  a  powerful  motive  and  a  well  defined  plan 
to  bring  his  powers  into  full  fruition  at  once.  A  little 
later,  when  he  began  to  revise,  enrich  and  standardize 
all  of  his  previous  work,  he  used  the  brush  and  water 
colors  more  freely  than  ever  before.  Hundreds  of  his 
earlier  studies  were  cast  aside;  many,  to  be  sure,  were 

"When  it  passed  into  the  equally  worthy  hands  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y. 
Jeanes,  of  Philadelphia.  Mr.  Jeanes  purchased  from  the  estate  of  Mr. 
Edward  Harris,  3d,  directly  or  indirectly,  and  at  different  times,  about 
110  of  these  early  originals;  others  were  dispersed,  four  of  early  date 
being  in  the  Museum  of  Harvard  University.  Mr.  Jeanes  also  possesses 
a  large  section  of  the  Audubon-H arris  correspondence,  which  extended 
over  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century,  and  of  which  little  has  been  pub- 
lished; to  his  kindness  I  am  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  reproducing 
some  of  the  drawings,  as  well  as  numerous  extracts  from  the  letters, 
in  the  present  work. 

10  Audubon  said  that  some  of  the  originals  of  The  Birds  of  America  were 
"made  as  long  ago  as  1805,"  which  may  well  have  been  the  case,  but 
the  earliest  date  which  has  been  preserved  on  the  drawings  is  that  of 
July  1,  1808,  for  "Rathbone's  Warbler,"  later  recognized  as  an  imma- 
ture form  of  the  Summer  Warbler.  The  Carbonated  Warbler  was  drawn 
May  7,  1811.  Seven  bear  the  date  of  1812,  namely:  Yellow-rumped 
Warbler,  April  22;  Le  petit  Caporal,  April  23;  Wood  Pewee,  April  28; 
Blackburnian  and  Bay-breasted  Warblers,  May  12;  Chestnut-sided  Warbler, 
May  17;  and  Cuvier's  Wren,  June  8. 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  181 

hastily  drawn  in  pastel,  crayon  and  pencil,  and  had  not 
time  failed  him  at  the  end,  nothing  of  his  earlier  Ameri- 
can period  would  have  remained  in  the  final  product. 

Nearly  all  of  these  rejected  drawings  bear  serial 
numbers,  which  from  the  lack  of  sequence  now  observed, 
show  that  they  were  subject  to  constant  change  and 
that  their  total  number  must  have  been  great.  All  bear 
the  scientific  and  common  names  in  French  or  English 
or  both,  and  many  are  signed  with  the  artist's  initials 
or  name;  besides  giving  the  place  and  date,  in  some 
cases  the  weights  and  measurements  of  his  subjects  are 
added,  with  detailed  sketches  of  foot,  bill,  or  eggs.11 

A  large  crayon  sketch  of  a  groundhog,  in  excellent 
drawing,  is  labeled  "Marmotte  de  sauvage,  No.  159,  le 
6  juin,  1805."  The  Redstart,  executed  in  August  of 
the  same  year,  is  a  good  example  of  Audubon's  more 
delicate  early  work;  it  shows  also  the  attention  which 
he  was  then  beginning  to  pay  to  accessories,  his  bird 
being  perched  on  a  spray  of  ripening  blackberries.  The 
Wagtail,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  rough  crayon  sketch, 
dashed  off  on  December  22  of  the  same  year.  A  pencil 
and  crayon  drawing  of  the  Mountain  Titmouse,  which 
is  a  European  bird,  was  probably  made  from  a  captive, 
and  at  sea,  since  it  bears  the  date  of  January  22,  1805, 
when  Audubon  was,  I  believe,  aboard  the  Hope.12  The 
latest  of  these  French  pieces,  designated  "No.  94. 
Woodpecker,  le  8  mars,  1806.  pres  Nantes;  12 
to  the  tail,"  was  executed  about  a  month  before  the 
naturalist  finally  left  France  with  Rozier  to  settle  per- 
manently in  the  United  States.  The  excellence  of  such 

11  For  a  list  of  Audubon's  early  dated  drawings  see  Appendix  II. 
Through  the  courtesy  of  Mr.  Jeanes,  I  am  able  to  reproduce  a  fuller  series 
of  Audubon's  early  drawings  of  French  and  American  birds  than  has  hith- 
erto been  published,  and  have  chosen  the  subjects  to  illustrate  the  develop- 
ment of  his  style. 

"  See  Vol.  I,  p.  125. 


182       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

a  drawing  as  that  of  the  Wood  Thrush  (1806)  is  in 
marked  contrast  to  the  more  ambitious  "Fish  Hawk  or 
Osprey,  A.  Willson,  Perkioming  Creek,  1809,"  in  which 
the  bird  holds  a  white  sucker  in  its  talons  but  is  less 
happily  rendered.  Nine  large  pastels  of  waterfowl  and 
two  smaller  pieces,  representing  a  Robin  and  Brown 
Thrush,  in  the  same  style,  are  good  examples  of  Audu- 
bon's  cruder  efforts  of  that  time ;  they  were  merely  hur- 
ried sketches  or  practice  work,  with  no  attempt  to  finish 
with  all  the  perfection  of  detail  of  which  he  was  then 
capable. 

In  a  full-size  pastel  of  the  Black  Surf  or  Velvet 
Duck,  drawn  on  December  28,  1806,  and  signed  "J.  J. 
L.  Audubon,"  the  note  is  added:  "the  only  specimen  of 
the  kind  I  have  ever  seen."  He  became  well  acquainted 
with  the  Velvet  Ducks,  now  better  known  as  the  White- 
winged  Scoters,  and  in  his  account  of  the  species  says: 
"As  we  approached  the  shores  of  Labrador,  we  found 
the  waters  covered  with  dense  flocks  of  these  birds,  and 
yet  they  continued  to  arrive  there  from  the  St.  Law- 
rence for  several  days  in  succession.  We  were  all  as- 
tonished at  their  numbers  which  were  such  that  we 
could  not  help  imagining  that  all  the  Velvet  Ducks  in 
the  world  were  passing  before  us."  13 

Several  of  these  drawings  are  credited  to  "The  Falls 
of  the  Ohio,"  as  the  rapids  of  this  river  at  Louisville 
were  then  generally  called;  a  number  to  "Red  Banks," 
the  old  name  of  Henderson,  Kentucky;  while  five  were 
done  in  Pennsylvania,  probably  when  Audubon  was  at 
the  home  of  his  father-in-law,  William  Bakewell,  in  the 
spring  of  1812.  An  excellent  drawing  of  the  Chuck 
Wills  Widow  was  probably  made  on  the  Red  River,14  in 

w  Ornithological  Biography    (Bibl.   No.   2),  vol.  i,  p.  354. 
14  See  Appendix  II. 


KAKr.Y  UNPUBLISHED  DRAWING  OF  THE  GROUNDHOG: 
6  JUIN,  1805,  NO.  159." 


MARMOTTE  DE  SAVAGE, 


Published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y.  Jeanes. 


WATIIR-COI.OR  DRAWING  OK   A   "VOUNG  RACOON    OF  THIS   YEAR,  SEITE.MHER   10, 

I'ublislicd  by  c(,urtcsy  of  the  American  Museum  of  Natural   History, 

New   York. 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  183 

Arkansas,  when  Audubon  was  exploring  that  country 
and  slowly  making  his  way  to  New  Orleans  in  June, 

1821,  though  it  should  be  noticed  that  a  steamboat  on 
which  he  sometimes  traveled  was  called  the  Red  River. 

Audubon  began  in  the  usual  way,  by  representing 
his  birds  in  profile,  and  often  on  a  simple  perch,  but 
gradually  introduced  accessories  which  eventually  be- 
came such  an  important  part  of  his  plan  that,  after 

1822,  his  plates  took  on  more  the  character  of  balanced 
pictures,  literally  teeming  with  the  characteristic  fruits 
and  flowers  of  America,  as  well  as  with  insects  and 
animals  of  every  sort,  suggestive  of  the  food  and  sur- 
roundings of  his  subjects,  not  to  speak  of  American 
landscapes  drawn  from  many  parts  of  the  country. 

Dissatisfied  with  the  older  methods  of  drawing  birds 
in  the  stereotyped  attitudes  of  most  stuffed  specimens, 
Audubon  made  many  experiments  at  "Mill  Grove"  be- 
fore hitting  upon  what  he  called  his  "method"  of  using 
wires  to  pierce  and  hold  the  body  of  the  bird  in  any 
attitude  which  he  desired  to  represent.  His  device, 
which  was  simple  only  for  one  who  possessed  the  requi- 
site knowledge  and  skill,  was  publicly  exhibited  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Wernerian  Society  at  Edinburgh  on 
December  16,  1826.  A  recently  killed  bird  was  fixed  in 
the  position  desired  by  means  of  wires,  and  placed 
against  a  background  ruled  with  division  lines  in  squares 
to  correspond  with  similar  lines  on  Audubon's  paper. 
The  parts,  measured  if  necessary  with  compasses,  were 
then  drawn  in,  and  every  part  was  rendered  in  due  pro- 
portion. As  to  the  difficulty  of  thus  securing  natural 
attitudes,  aside  from  any  question  of  draughtsmanship, 
we  have  only  to  recall  the  bungling  work  of  most  taxi- 
dermists; there  are  careful  students  of  animal  life  who 
are  able  to  reanimate  their  subjects,  even  when  reduced 


184       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

to  dried  and  mounted  skins,  but  such  ability  is  not  easy 
to  acquire  or  impart.  Method  is  always  subordinate  to 
power,  and  Audubon  at  his  best,  when  not  hampered  by 
lack  of  time,  was  able  to  represent  the  living,  moving 
bird  in  a  hundred  attitudes  never  attempted  before, 
which  surprised  the  world  of  his  day  by  the  remarkable 
skill,  freshness  and  fidelity  they  displayed. 

Some  have  complained  that  Audubon,  in  striving 
for  effect,  too  often  exaggerated  the  action  of  his  sub- 
jects; his  birds,  like  the  Frenchman  he  was,  gesticulate 
too  much,  while  Wilson's  were  more  cautious  or  sedate, 
as  became  a  canny  Scot.  The  complaint  may  be  well 
founded,  but  the  explanation  is  too  trivial  for  serious 
consideration.  Wilson,  like  his  predecessors,  regardless 
of  nationality,  merely  followed  custom,  which  led  by 
the  path  of  least  resistance.  Barraband  and  all  the  best 
French  artists  before  him  in  depicting  bird  and  animal 
life  had  done  the  same,  and  in  their  hands  the  perch, 
were  the  subject  a  bird,  became  stereotyped  to  the  last 
degree,  as  if  inserted  with  a  rubber  stamp.  Audubon 
followed  the  same  course  until  he  became  imbued  with 
the  desire  of  endowing  his  animals  with  all  the  moving 
energy  of  which  they  were  capable,  whether  in  seizing 
their  prey,  feeding  their  young,  or  fighting  their  ene- 
mies. It  is  well  known  that  many  an  animal,  though 
ordinarily  cautious  or  even  timid,  can  be  roused  to  vig- 
orous action  under  the  spur  of  emotion,  as  when  its 
young  are  suddenly  threatened,  and  be  it  warbler,  blue- 
bird, or  cuckoo,  may  become  a  contortionist  at  a  mo- 
ment's notice.  Very  few  of  the  1,065  life-size  drawings  of 
birds  which  appear  in  his  large  plates  could  be  truly 
dq^cribed  as  fantastic  or  unnatural. 

Audubon's  problem  was  rendered  more  difficult  by 
the  fact  that  all  of  his  animals  were  drawn  to  the  size 


EARLY  DRAWINGS  185 

of  life,  and  because  his  desire  and  style  compelled  him 
to  represent  the  utmost  detail,  even  to  the  barbs  of  a 
feather  or  the  individual  hairs  of  a  mammal.  When  a 
landscape  was  to  be  included  it  was  not  an  easy  task 
to  harmonize  life-sized  objects  in  the  foreground  with 
receding  objects,  and  here  he  sometimes  failed.  Some 
of  his  least  happy  compositions,  however,  were  the  re- 
sult of  haste,  as  an  examination  of  the  originals  of  his 
Birds  of  America  has  clearly  shown;  when  hard  pressed 
for  time  he  would  resort  to  the  scissors  and  paste,  in 
order  to  combine  the  parts  of  several  distinct  drawings 
into  one  plate,  and  often  leave  the  backgrounds  to  be 
supplied  entirely  by  the  engraver.  One  of  the  few 
grotesque  results  of  such  methods  is  seen  in  plate  141, 
wherein  are  represented  the  Goshawk  and  the  Stanley 
Hawk;  the  latter,  which  was  originally  designed  for 
different  surroundings,  has  quite  lost  its  center  of  grav- 
ity on  an  islet  amid  stream.  An  early  reviewer  thought 
that  the  artist  must  surely  have  intended  this  for  a  cari- 
cature, as  in  the  case  of  one  of  Hogarth's  famous  prints, 
in  which  a  man  on  a  distant  hill  is  lighting  his  pipe  at  a 
candle  held  out  of  a  window  in  the  foreground. 

The  action  of  Audubon's  subjects  was  sometimes  ex- 
aggerated; his  birds  on  the  wing  were  occasionally  ill 
drawn,  and  other  defects  might  be  mentioned.  But  we 
must  admire  his  boldness  for  attempting  so  many  dif- 
ficult positions,  and  admit  that,  when  all  is  considered, 
he  succeeded  to  admiration,  and  set  a  new  standard  for 
the  illustration  of  works  on  natural  history. 


CHAPTER   XIII 

AUDUBON'S    MARRIAGE   AND    SETTLEMENT    IN    THE 

WEST 

Audubon  and  Rozier  decide  to  start  a  pioneer  store  at  Louisville,  Ken- 
tucky—Their purchase  of  goods  in  New  York— "Westward  Ho"  with 
Rozier — Rozier's  diary  of  the  journey — An  unfortunate  investment  in 
indigo — Effect  of  the  Embargo  Act — Marriage  to  Lucy  Bakewell — 
Return  to  Louisville — Life  on  the  Ohio — Depression  of  trade — 
William  Bakewell's  assistance — Audubon's  eldest  son  born  at  the 
"Indian  Queen"— The  Bakewells— Life  at  Louisville. 

In  the  summer  of  1807  Audubon  and  Rozier  had 
decided  to  try  their  fortunes  in  the  West,  which  then 
meant  the  Ohio  Valley  and  the  wilds  of  Kentucky,  and 
had  fixed  upon  Louisville  as  a  promising  point  for 
pioneer  trade.  On  August  1  they  purchased  a  consid- 
erable stock  of  goods  through  the  commission  house  of 
their  friend,  Benjamin  Bakewell,  and  three  days  later 
gave  their  note,  payable  in  eight  months,  for  over 
$3,600.1  Then,  or  a  little  later,  they  had  dealings  also 
with  Messrs.  Robert  Kinder  &  Company,  of  New  York, 
as  well  as  the  French  importing  house  of  Laurence 
Huron,  with  which  Ferdinand  had  been  recently  asso- 
ciated in  Philadelphia;  apparently  also  they  sent  goods 
to  Francois  Rozier  at  Nantes,  and  from  him  received 
imports  through  the  Bakewell  firm,  but,  as  we  shall  see, 
all  foreign  trade  was  soon  cut  off.  When  their  plans 
were  complete  and  their  goods  had  started  for  the  fron- 
tier, they  set  out  themselves  for  Louisville  on  the  last 
day  of  August,  1807. 

*See  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  11. 

186 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        187 

Ferdinand  Rozier  kept  a  record  2  of  this  journey, 
the  formidable  nature  of  which  will  be  best  appreciated 
by  reading  his  matter-of-fact  narrative  composed  from 
notes  daily  jotted  down.  In  these  easy-going  times, 
when  oceans  and  continents  are  crossed  with  ever  in- 
creasing ease  and  speed,  this  simple  chronicle  of  early 
travel  in  America  is  worth  preserving,  if  only  for  its 
historical  contrasts. 

On  the  thirty-first  day  of  August,  1807,  in  company  with 
Audubon,  I  left  Mill  Grove  for  Louisville,  Kentucky,  where 
we  anticipated  engaging  in  the  mercantile  business. 

Leaving  Philadelphia  by  stage  we  traveled  to  Lancaster^ 
Pennsylvania,  a  distance  of  sixty-one  miles,  where  we  arrived 
at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon ;  we  dined,  and  proceeded  to 
Big  Chickers,  distant  nine  miles  farther,  where  we  spent  the 
night.  The  roads  from  Philadelphia  to  Lancaster  were  in  ex- 
cellent condition,  and  at  about  every  two  miles  we  found  good 
taverns.  The  only  remarkable  thing  we  noticed  in  agriculture 
was  hemp,  there  being  little  else  of  interest.  The  city  of  Lan- 
caster was  attractive,  but  the  short  duration  of  our  stay  pre- 
vented us  from  having  more  than  a  casual  view  of  it.  The 
tavern  where  we  slept  was  not  very  good;  from  our  chambers, 

*  This  diary  was  first  brought  to  my  attention  by  Mr.  Ruthven  Deane, 
and  for  permission  to  reproduce  it  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  a 
great-grandson  of  Ferdinand,  Mr.  Welton  A.  Rozier,  of  Saint  Louis.  Mr. 
Rozier  writes  that  the  original  French  notes  have  been  mislaid  or  lost, 
but  that  they  were  closely  followed  in  this  translation,  whenever  com- 
plete. Though  numerous  verbal  changes  have  been  made  in  the  present 
draft,  these  have  not  altered  the  meaning  in  any  respect.  Ferdinand 
Rozier's  narrative  begins  as  follows: 

"I  left  Nantes,  France,  in  company  with  John  James  Audubon,  on 
Saturday,  the  12th  day  of  April,  1806,  bound  for  the  city  of  New  York, 
U.  S.  A.,  on  an  American  ship  named  the  Polly,  commanded  by  Captain 
Sammis,  and  arrived  at  New  York  on  Tuesday,  the  27th  day  of  May. 
While  on  the  voyage  across  the  ocean  our  vessel  was  stopped,  overhauled, 
searched,  and  robbed  by  an  English  privateer,  named  the  Rattlesnake,  which 
detained  us  a  day  and  a  night. 

"We  remained  in  New  York  City  for  a  few  days,  and  then  removed 
to  Mill  Grove,  on  Pickering  [Perkioming]  Creek,  in  Pennsylvania,  a  tract 
of  land  owned  by  our  fathers,  and  at  that  time  thought  to  contain  valu- 
able minerals." 


188       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

however,  we  could  discern  a  new  bridge,  which  had  two  im- 
mense arches  spanning  the  river. 

At  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  left  Lancaster  for  Eliza- 
bethtown,  distant  nine  miles.  The  roads  were  miserable,  and 
we  suffered  a  severe  jolting  and  shaking  up.  Arriving  there,  we 
procured  two  additional  horses,  which  made  six -all  told,  and 
went  on  to  Middletown,  where  we  breakfasted  at  a  tavern  named 
the  "Eagle" ;  the  village  was  small,  with  few  houses,  and  noth- 
ing of  interest. 

Journeying  on  to  Harrisburg  without  mishap,  over  roads 
somewhat  improved,  we  finally  arrived,  and  discovered  a  very 
beautiful  river  called  the  Susquehanna.  The  city  of  Harris- 
burg  itself  appeared  very  attractive  to  us,  and  its  situation 
is  beautiful;  proceeding,  we  were  first  compelled  to  cross  the 
river,  which  was  accomplished  by  means  of  a  large  flatboat 
propelled  by  a  sweep  of  generous  proportions.  The  captain, 
who  proved  a  most  voluble  person,  informed  us  that  the  river 
abounded  in  fish,  and  then  related  marvelous  tales  of  the  re- 
markable catches  that  had  been  made;  many  of  his  stories, 
however,  were  of  such  glaring  improbability  that  we  were  forced 
to  doubt  his  veracity. 

Carlisle,  sixteen  miles  distant,  was  reached  in  due  course, 
and  there  we  changed  horses  at  a  tavern  called  the  "John 
Mason."  This  city,  though  small,  presented  a  fine  appear- 
ance, having  a  market  place,  two  large  churches,  many  brick 
buildings,  a  large  academy,  and  several  attractive  taverns. 
Continuing,  we  finally  came  to  Walnut  Bottoms,  where  we  en- 
gaged chambers  at  a  very  imposing  tavern ;  this  proved  far 
superior  to  any  we  had  hitherto  visited;  it  was  clean  and  in- 
viting; its  appointments  were  good,  and  its  service  excellent. 
On  our  journey  we  were  impressed  by  a  tree  of  great  size,  that 
resembled  an  oak,  but  upon  inquiry  learned  that  it  was  called 
Hackberry,3  and  produced  a  fruit  similar  in  size  to  a  cherry. 
On  the  north  and  south  of  us  were  high  mountains  which  pre- 

8  In  the  rich  bottom-lands  of  the  Ohio  River  basin  the  hackberry  or 
sugarberry  (Celtis  occidentalis)  sometimes  exceeds  one  hundred  feet  in 
height,  and  has  a  diameter  of  from  four  to  five  feet. 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        189 

sented  an  imposing  appearance;  the  foliage  was  heavy  and 
luxuriant;  the  soil  of  the  foot-hills  appeared  fertile,  but  the 
crops  were  inferior. 

We  were  awakened  early  in  the  morning  so  as  to  begin 
our  journey  in  good  season,  and  having  had  a  heavy  storm 
during  the  night  we  expected  to  find  the  roads  very  bad,  but  to 
our  delight  they  were  none  the  worse  for  the  rain.  Journeying 
most  of  the  way  through  woods,  we  came  to  Shipensburg  and 
breakfasted;  this  village  had  only  one  long  street,  and  pre- 
sented an  appearance  far  from  pleasing.  A  lady  with  her  sock 
[knitting  work]  proved  a  great  talker  and  asked  us  many  ques- 
tions. This  village  was  intersected  by  a  creek,  called  the  Mid- 
dlespring.  We  next  came  to  Chambersburg,  ten  miles  away, 
and  there  rested  and  purchased  tickets  for  continuing  our  jour- 
ney. That  village  lies  in  a  valley,  and  is  composed  of  two 
squares  containing  a  post  office,  an  academy,  a  factory,  mar- 
ket place  and  tavern. 

When  the  stage  was  at  last  made  ready  for  its  journey 
we  took  our  places  in  it,  but  no  sooner  was  the  village  left  be- 
hind than  we  encountered  very  rough  roads,  which  for  a  time 
caused  great  discomfort ;  our  feelings  were  expressed  by  all  the 
passengers,  but  at  length  we  reached  a  tavern  named  "Cable 
Roussed,"  where  our  horses  were  changed.  We  next  stopped 
at  the  "John  Campbell"  tavern,  and  saw  many  drunkards 
about ;  then  at  "Peter  White's,"  almost  at  the  foot  of  the  moun- 
tains, where  we  were  each  treated  to  a  glass  of  excellent  fresh 
milk.  Still  going  on  and  approaching  the  mountains,  the  roads 
became  so  excessively  rough  that  Audubon  and  myself  decided 
to  proceed  on  foot.  Though  this  was  a  three-mile  climb,  we 
managed  to  cover  it  in  three  and  a  half  hours.  So  bad  in 
truth  was  the  road  that  it  seemed  well  nigh  impossible  for  any 
vehicle  to  ascend  the  mountain ;  the  stage  did  go  up,  however, 
and  reached  the  summit  soon  after  us.  On  the  heights  of  the 
mountain  was  a  small  tavern  where  refreshments  were  served, 
and  while  partaking  of  a  light  lunch  there  we  were  waited  on 
by  a  couple  named  Currie,  and  James,  their  hired  man.  While 
we  were  refreshing  ourselves,  our  host  told  harrowing  tales  of 


190      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

wild-animal  hunting  in  the  mountains,  and  assured  us  that  there 
were  many  beasts  in  the  surrounding  woods.  Leaving  the  sum- 
mit in  the  stage,  we  continued  for  some  distance,  but  the  jolt- 
ing, rolling  and  swaying  was  so  frightful  that  we  decided  to 
descend  on  foot.  The  three  miles  down  the  mountain  was  cov- 
ered quickly,  but  we  were  utterly  worn  out  with  fatigue  when 
we  reached  McConnelsburg ;  this  village  lies  in  a  valley,  has 
few  houses  and  but  little  of  interest ;  we  made  forty  miles  dur- 
ing the  day.  Leaving  early  on  the  next  morning,  after  travel- 
ing thirty-two  miles,  over  better  roads,  we  spent  the  night  at 
the  tavern  of  B.  Mastin. 

Having  breakfasted  at  an  early  hour,  we  were  again  on 
our  way  by  sunrise,  and  after  driving  two  miles  came  to  the 
Juniata  River,  which  was  crossed  in  a  leaky  flatboat.  Eight 
miles  beyond  this  point  we  saw  a  very  fine  and  stately  mansion 
which  was  said  to  belong  to  a  Mrs.  Haily.  Finally  after  a 
hard  and  tiresome  day  we  arrived  at  Bedford.  The  Juniata 
River  flows  along  Bedford  in  a  narrow  bed,  between  high  moun- 
tain walls ;  the  village  is  situated  in  the  valley,  and  boasts  many 
fine  stores  and  residences.  We  were  told  that  about  fourteen 
miles  farther  on  there  were  mineral  springs,  the  waters  of  which 
possessed  great  curative  properties,  and  that  many  people 
visited  them  each  season;  time,  however,  did  not  permit  us  to 
visit  this  resort. 

Six  horses  were  hitched  to  our  stage  when  we  departed  the 
next  morning.  The  mountain  roads  ascended  more  gradually, 
and  were  less  rough ;  the  weather  being  exceptionally  fine,  forty 
miles  were  easily  made  before  reaching  our  destination  at  a 
village  called  Somerset,  which  contained  a  courthouse  that 
marked  it  at  once  as  the  county  seat.  At  four  o'clock  of  the 
morning  following  we  were  again  on  our  way,  and  left  Somerset 
in  a  heavy  fog,  which  at  that  early  hour  sharply  accentuated 
the  chill  in  the  air.  At  the  end  of  the  day  we  found  ourselves 
at  Laurel  Hill,  where  we  passed  the  night  at  the  tavern  of  John 
Arranats. 

Again  at  four  in  the  morning  we  resumed  our  journey,  and 
after  crossing  Laurel  Creek  once  more  encountered  rough 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        191 

roads,  but  soon  reached  a  tavern  called  the  "Jacob  Hoff,"  where 
we  breakfasted.  Still  pushing  forward,  at  noon  we  came  to  the 
small  house  of  a  family  called  Margennefs,  and  procured  a 
meager  lunch.  At  a  short  distance  from  this  place  a  change 
of  horses  was  made,  and  after  driving  all  the  afternoon  we 
entered  the  attractive  village  of  Greensburg,  where  we  spent 
the  night.  Rising  reluctantly  at  peep  of  day,  we  continued 
on  our  course  and  made  ten  miles  before  breakfasting  at  a 
tavern,  the  "Stewart  Auberge"  by  name.  After  leaving  this 
point  we  came  to  Turtle  Creek,  when  the  road  descended  so 
abruptly  that  it  was  decided  to  dismount  and  walk,  but  the 
heat  was  sultry  and  oppressive,  and  we  suffered  greatly.  At 
last,  however,  the  city  of  Pittsburgh  was  reached,  and  there 
we  found  good  and  commodious  lodgings  at  the  Jefferson  Hotel, 
conducted  by  Mr.  Galland,  a  most  genial  and  agreeable  host. 
We  remained  in  Pittsburgh  several  days,  and  became  ac- 
quainted with  many  of  its  citizens,  among  whom  were  several 
countrymen  of  ours  who  were  engaged  in  business  and  were 
very  congenial  and  hospitable.  The  city  does  not  present  a 
pleasing  appearance ;  it  has  been  increasing  in  size  with  astound- 
ing rapidity,4  and  possesses  a  remarkable  commerce;  the  Ohio 
River  there  is  most  beautiful. 

The  remainder  of  our  journey  was  by  way  of  the  Ohio, 
and  we  made  it  entirely  in  an  open  flatboat,  a  cumbersome  un- 
wieldy craft,  managed  by  hand,  and  in  this  particular  instance 
very  badly.  One  who  has  never  had  this  experience  can  little 
understand  the  terrible  monotony,  hardships  and  deprivations 
encountered  on  a  long  journey  such  as  we  endured.  We  were 
unprotected  from  the  elements,  and  our  beds  consisted  of  bare 
pine  boards,  upon  which  we  slept  as  best  we  could,  enveloped 
in  our  great  coats. 

There  were  times  without  number  when  our  boat  would 
run  upon  hidden  sand  bars  to  become  grounded,  and  we  were 
then  often  obliged  to  get  into  the  cold  water  and  assist  in  the 
work  of  extricating  her.  At  other  times,  unprotected  as  we 

4  The  population  of  the  second  city  of  Pennsylvania  in  1800  was  1,565; 
in  1840,  4,768;  and  in  1910,  after  the  annexation  of  Allegheny,  533,905. 


192      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

were,  the  rains  drenched  us  to  the  skin,  and  our  clothing  was 
so  saturated  that  it  took  many  hours  to  dry.  At  night  when 
it  was  clear,  we  continued  our  course  down  the  river,  but,  in 
bad  weather,  or  when  very  cloudy  and  dark,  we  were  obliged 
to  tie  up  to  the  shore,  frequently  to  the  bank  of  some  wild, 
uninhabited  island,  and  wait  there  for  daylight ;  then  we  would 
resume  our  slow,  tedious  and  seemingly  never  ending  journey. 
Added  to  these  hardships,  our  boat  was  commanded  by  a  most 
disagreeable  and  ungentlemanly  captain,  named  Harris;  his 
language,  and  demeanor  marked  him  as  a  person  of  low  birth 
and  bad  character. 

Among  some  of  the  places  which  were  passed  en  route,  I 
remember  the  following:  Wheeling,  Marietta,  Market  Slough, 
famous  for  the  conspiracy  of  Colonel  Burr,  Belleville,  Litards 
Falls,  Point  Pleasant,  Manchester,  Maysville,  Cincinnati,  and 
finally  our  journey's  end,  Louisville. 

At  Louisville  the  partners  were  attracted  by  the 
country  and  its  prospects,  as  well  as  by  the  hospitable 
character  of  the  people.  Their  choice,  as  they  then 
thought,  had  been  well  made,  and  they  decided  to  make 
it  their  future  home.  "We  marked  Louisville,"  said 
Audubon,  "as  a  spot  designed  by  nature  to  become  a 
place  of  great  importance,  and  had  we  been  as  wise  as 
we  now  are,  I  might  never  have  published  The  Birds  of 
America;  for  a  few  hundred  dollars  laid  out,  at  that 
period,  in  lands  or  town  lots  near  Louisville,  would,  if 
left  to  grow  over  with  grass  to  a  date  ten  years  past 
[this  being  1835],  have  become  an  immense  fortune,  but 
young  heads  are  on  young  shoulders;  it  was  not  to  be, 
and  who  cares."  5 

Rozier  did  not  say  when  either  they  or  their  goods 
reached  the  pioneer  settlement,  but  from  an  item  in 

'Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86), 
vol.  i,  p.  28. 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        193 

their  account  current  with  the  Bakewell  house,6  it  is  evi- 
dent that  they  opened  a  retail  shop  in  Louisville  at 
once,  for  on  September  29  they  were  charged  with  $57 
for  an  order  of  powder  horns  and  shotbags.  In  the 
same  record  there  is  a  more  interesting  entry  under  date 
of  December  31,  1807:  "advanced  per  [sailing  packet] 
Jane,  for  indigo  and  expences  .  .  .  $1,516.43,"  ordered 
evidently  through  Mr.  Bakewell,  presumably  for  export 
to  France.  This  incident  Audubon  must  have  had  in 
mind  when  in  after  life  he  wrote:  "The  mercantile  busi- 
ness did  not  suit  me.  The  very  first  venture  which  I 
undertook  was  in  indigo;  it  cost  me  several  hundred 
pounds,  the  whole  of  which  was  lost."  It  may  be  re- 
called that  in  his  letter  of  April  24  of  this  year,  Audubon 
wrote  Fra^ois  Rozier7  that  the  Bakewell  house  had 
sent  him  a  consignment  of  indigo  by  the  same  ship, 
Captain  Sammis,  and  hoped  for  its  favorable  sale  in 
France.  No  doubt  the  venture  succeeded  so  well  that 
the  young  traders  were  induced  to  repeat  the  experi- 
ment. As  it  happened,  however,  on  December  22,  a 
week  before  this  entry  for  the  indigo  was  made,  the 
famous  Embargo  Act  of  President  Jefferson  had  taken 
effect,  with  the  result  of  cutting  off  all  exports  to  Eng- 
land and  France  and  at  the  same  time  of  paralyzing 
American  trade.  The  Bakewell  house,  as  we  have  al- 
ready noticed,  like  so  many  others,  immediately  went 
down,  and  the  partners  found  that  their  tobacco  and 
other  western  produce  found  so  little  sale  in  New  York 
that  by  April  7,  1808,  they  were  obliged  to  call  for  an 
extension  of  their  notes. 

Notwithstanding   the   gloomy   outlook    for   trade, 
Audubon  had  no  fears  for  the  future.     As  early  as 

•See  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  11. 
7  See  Chapter  XI,  page  158. 


194       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

March,  1808,  he  left  Rozier  in  Kentucky  and  returned 
to  Pennsylvania.  No  time  was  lost  in  making  known 
his  plans  to  Lucy  Bakewell  and  her  family,  and  having 
received  their  approval,  the  lovers  prepared  for  the  ad- 
venturous journey  that  was  to  celebrate  their  wedding. 
Audubon  was  married  to  Miss  Bakewell,  at  "Fatland 
Ford,"  on  Friday,  April  8,  1808,  by  the  Reverend  Doc- 
tor Latimer,  an  Episcopal  clergyman  of  Philadelphia, 
and  on  the  next  morning  started  with  his  bride  for  the 
frontier.  This  event  must  be  regarded  as  the  most 
auspicious  in  his  career,  for  in  all  probability  the  world 
would  never  have  heard  of  Audubon  had  it  not  been  for 
the  spur  to  his  ambition  and  the  balance  wheel  to  his 
character  which  came  through  his  admirable  wife. 

The  first  stage  of  their  honeymoon  involved  the  long 
ride  of  over  250  miles  to  Pittsburgh,  the  hazards  and 
discomforts  of  which  we  have  learned  from  Rozier's 
description;  it  was  marked  in  this  instance  by  an  acci- 
dent, for  in  crossing  the  Alleghany  mountains  their 
coach  was  upset  and  Mrs.  Audubon  did  not  escape  with- 
out severe  bruises.  At  Pittsburgh  the  Audubons  met  a 
number  of  young  emigrants  bound  westward  like  them- 
selves, and  in  their  company  they  prepared  to  float  down 
the  beautiful  Ohio  in  a  flatboat  or  ark.  Their  entire 
journey,  which,  owing  to  the  windings  of  the  river,  could 
not  have  been  much  less  than  a  thousand  miles,  was 
made  in  twelve  days,  and  without  further  mishap. 

The  wild  and  varied  beauty  of  the  Ohio  of  that  day 
had  great  attractions  for  the  naturalist,  who  often  re- 
gretted that  no  facile  writer  had  left  a  true  and  vivid 
picture  of  it  for  the  benefit  of  posterity,  for  he  foresaw 
with  great  concern  the  inevitable  changes  which  advanc- 
ing civilization  would  quickly  produce  along  its  delight- 
ful banks.  Audubon  traversed  this  mighty  highway 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        195 

countless  times  in  after  life,  and  some  of  his  musings 
have  lost  none  of  their  interest  with  the  flight  of  time, 
for  he  had  witnessed  the  advance  of  the  white  man  and 
the  retreat  of  the  red,  along  with  the  great  herds  of 
deer,  elk  and  buffalo  that  once  found  peaceful  pasturage 
on  its  banks.  Speaking  of  a  later  but  hardly  less  ro- 
mantic journey,8  he  said: 

As  night  came,  sinking  into  darkness  the  broader  portions 
of  the  river,  our  minds  became  affected  by  strong  emotions, 
and  wandered  far  beyond  the  present  moments.  The  tinkling 
of  bells  told  us  that  the  cattle  which  bore  them  were  gently 
roving  from  valley  to  valley  in  search  of  food,  or  returning 
to  their  distant  homes.  The  hooting  of  the  Great  Owl,  or  the 
muffled  noise  of  its  wings  as  it  sailed  smoothly  over  the  stream, 
were  matters  of  interest  to  us ;  so  was  the  sound  of  the  boat- 
man's horn,  as  it  came  winding  more  and  more  softly  from 
afar.  When  daylight  returned,  many  songsters  burst  forth 
with  echoing  notes,  more  and  more  mellow  to  the  listening  ear. 
Here  and  there  the  lonely  cabin  of  a  squatter  struck  the  eye, 
giving  note  of  commencing  civilization.  The  crossing  of  the 
stream  by  a  deer  foretold  how  soon  the  hills  would  be  covered 
by  snow. 

Many  sluggish  flatboats  we  overtook  and  passed ;  some  laden 
with  produce  from  the  different  head-waters  of  the  small  rivers 
that  pour  their  tributary  streams  into  the  Ohio ;  others,  of  less 
dimensions,  crowded  with  emigrants  from  distant  parts,  in 
search  of  a  new  home. 

The  margins  of  the  shores  and  of  the  river  were  at  this 
season  amply  supplied  with  game.  A  Wild  Turkey,  a  Grouse, 
or  a  Blue-winged  Teal,  could  be  procured  in  a  few  moments; 
and  we  fared  well,  for,  whenever  we  pleased,  we  landed,  struck 
up  a  fire  and  provided,  as  we  were,  with  the  necessary  utensils, 
procured  a  good  repast. 

"When  Audubon  was  returning  with  his  wife  and  infant  son  from 
Pennsylvania  to  Kentucky  in  the  autumn  of  1810;  see  "The  Ohio," 
Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  29. 


196       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Louisville  at  this  time  was  a  small  trading  and  agri- 
cultural center  of  barely  a  thousand  people.9  Though 
the  early  promises  of  business  there  were  not  fulfilled, 
Audubon  and  his  wife  at  once  entered  upon  a  happy 
period,  for  they  made  many  friends  in  a  new  country 
settled  by  whole-hearted,  well-to-do  planters;  the  men 
were  fond  of  good  horses  and  of  hunting,  and  the  nat- 
uralist, who  was  also  a  merchant,  was  welcomed  among 
them  as  a  kindred  spirit.  But,  said  Audubon,  "birds 
were  birds  then  as  now,  and  my  thoughts  were  ever  and 
anon  turning  towards  them  as  the  objects  of  my  greatest 
delight.  I  shot,  I  drew,  I  looked  on  nature  only;  my 
days  were  happy  beyond  human  conception,  and  beyond 
that  I  really  cared  not.  ...  I  seldom  passed  a  day 
without  drawing  a  bird,  or  noting  something  respecting 
its  habits,  Rozier  meantime  attending  the  counter." 

To  revert  again  to  the  business  affairs  of  the  Audu- 
bon-Rozier  firm  at  Louisville,  an  interesting  record  has 
been  preserved  in  a  letter 10  written  by  Thomas  Bake- 
well,  a  former  fellow-clerk  of  the  naturalist  in  the  senior 
Bakewell's  counting-house  in  New  York;  this  was  in- 
cluded with  the  statement  of  account,  referred  to  above. 

Thomas  Bakewell  to  Audubon  $  Rozier 

[At  bottom  of  account  sheet]    NEW  YORK,  Decem?.  13th.  1808 
MESSRS.  J.  AUDUBON  &  F.  ROZIER 

Louisville 
GENT*. 

I  have  now  the  pleasure  to  hand  }rou  your  account  current 
with  my  Father's  Estate  according  to  your  desire  as  expressed 

9  In   1800  the  population  of  Louisville  was   600,   and  in   1810  it  had 
risen  to  1,350;  see  Charles  Cist,  Cincinnati  in  1841   (Cincinnati,  1841). 

10  For  this  and  the  letter  of  Thomas  Bakewell's  uncle,  William  Bake- 
well,  which  follows  later,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Tom  J.  Rozier;  see  Note, 
Vol.  I,  p.  133,  and  for  accompanying  "Account  Current"  of  Audubon  & 
Rozier,  Appendix  I,  Document  No.  11. 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        197 

in  your  letter  to  Mess  Rob*.  Kinder  &  C°.  under  date  the  21st. 

$ 

of  Novr.  last.  I  cannot  tell  what  error  you  allude  to  of  93  . 
I  suppose  it  is  the  amount  of  commission  returned  $93.94  /  100 
which  you  will  perceive  is  duly  at  your  Cr.  in  the  a/c.  I  am 
sorry  to  say  that  the  tobacco  is  still  unsold  &  that  there  is  no 
prospect  of  selling  it  so  as  to  cover  the  balance  of  your  a/c 
Messrs  R.  Kinder  &  C°.  request  me  to  say  that  they  wish  the 
yarn  mentioned  in  their  letter  of  the  [word  omitted]  to  be  made 
of  water  rotted  Hemp  &  that  they  will  write  you  pr  next  post 
with  their  account  against  you  as  requested  by  you — 

I  remain  Gentn 
with  Your  m°.  ob*.  Serv*. 

THOS.  BAKEWEI/L 
for  the  assignees  of  my 

Father's  estate — 

Give  my  love  to  Mrs.  A.  my  aunt  a  recd.  hers  last  night — 
S.  &  is  much  as  usual — she  remains  very  sick  yet. 

T  B 

[Superscribed]    MESSRS.  AUDUBON  &  ROZIEB 
Merchants 
Louisville 
Kentucky 

Audubon  fraternized  with  the  sporting  men  of  his 
district,  who  gladly  sent  him  every  rare  bird  that  fell  to 
their  guns.  At  Shippingport  also,  then  an  independent 
center  below  the  falls  or  rapids,  he  found  a  sympathetic 
spirit  in  Doctor  W.  C.  Gait,  a  local  botanist,  as  well  as 
in  Nicholas  Berthoud,  who  had  become  his  wife's 
brother-in-law,  and  who  was  a  friend  on  whom  he  could 
always  rely.  The  spirit  of  hospitality  so  manifest  in 
all  these  new  friends  won  the  heart  of  Audubon  and  of 
his  attractive  wife,  to  whom  the  door  of  a  neighbor's 
house  was  sure  to  open  whenever  business  or  adventure 


198       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

called  her  husband  away.  "We  lived,"  said  Audubon, 
"two  years  at  Louisville,  where  we  enjoyed  many  of  the 
best  pleasures  which  this  life  can  afford;  and  whenever 
we  have  since  passed  that  way,  we  have  found  the  kind- 
ness of  our  former  friends  unimpaired."  It  was  while 
they  were  living  at  Gnath way's  hotel  of  the  "Indian 
Queen,"  in  Louisville,  that  Victor  Gifford  Audubon, 
who  was  destined  to  become  his  father's  right  hand  in 
the  publication  of  his  most  important  works,  was  born 
on  June  12,  1809. 

When  Audubon  had  reached  his  twenty- fourth  year, 
nature,  his  fond  nurse  from  infancy,  was  calling  to  him 
more  loudly  than  ever  before,  but  to  most  of  his  con- 
temporaries his  devotion  to  natural  history  could  have 
seemed  little  else  than  sheer  madness,  or,  at  best,  an 
utter  waste  of  time.  By  the  year  1810  his  portfolios 
were  swelling  with  upwards  of  two  hundred  pictures  of 
American  birds,  produced,  to  be  sure,  without  any  plan, 
and  far  inferior  to  the  best  of  his  later  work,  but  still 
done  to  the  size  of  life,  in  the  natural  colors,  and  far 
excelling  in  fidelity  and  charm  anything  that  had  been 
attempted  before.  At  this  time,  however,  the  young 
traders  needed  money  for  more  practical  affairs,  and 
Audubon's  father-in-law,  William  Bakewell  of  "Fat- 
land  Ford,"  consented  to  sell  a  portion  of  this  estate, 
amounting  to  170  acres,  in  order  that  his  daughter, 
Lucy,  might  immediately  realize  her  interest  in  it.  From 
this  sale  nearly  $8,000  was  obtained;  the  money  was 
deposited  with  Messrs.  Robert  Kinder  &  Company  of 
New  York,  a  firm  with  which  Audubon  and  Rozier  had 
dealt  from  the  opening  of  their  business  at  Louisville. 
This  is  clearly  shown  by  the  following  interesting 
letter:11 

"See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  196. 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        199 

William  Edkewell  to  Audubon  $  Rozier 

FATLAND  FORD  10  Apl  1810 


MESSS  AUDUBON  &  ROZIER 


I  have  at  last  settled  the  whole  business  with  Mr  Josh 
Williams  I  have  allowed  him  for  the  two  thirds  in  cash  3  per 
cent  &  have  remitted  to  Messrs  Kinder's  7838.50  on  your 
account.  —  The  quantity  was  surveyed  to  170  acres  at  47.5 
per  acre  7998.50,  from  which  was  deducted  160  dols  for  dis- 
count 

As  I  have  had  a  great  deal  of  trouble  &  anxiety  in  this 
business  &  had  to  find  assistants  in  surveying  with  several  days 
attendance,  dinners  &c  for  the  whole  party  several  journeys 
to  Norris  Town  and  also  to  Philada  with  the  carriage  to  convey 
the  money  —  postages  &c.  —  I  charge  you  1%  Per  cen^  on  the 
purchase  money  which  I  hope  you  will  think  not  unreasonable 
as  I  believe  it  is  under  the  charge  of  the  land  brokers  in  Philada 
&  they  have  no  trouble  in  the  business  compared  to  what  I  have 
had  —  I  feel  as  if  a  great  burthen  was  taken  off  my  back  now 
it  is  all  finished.  Out  of  this  you  will  please  to  present  Lucy 
with  38  dols  which  was  the  price  the  mare  sold  for  —  I  expected 
one  of  you  Gentn  would  have  come  to  the  Eastward  before  now 
it  is  I  expect  Mr  Roziers  turn  this  Sparing 

I  had  one  forged  note  returned  at  the  Bank  out  of  the 
money  of  Mr  Williams  &  one  dollar  a  counterfiet,  but  I  had 
stipulated  that  he  should  take  any  faulty  ones  back.  He  paid 
about  a  third  of  the  money  in  specie  so  that  I  was  obliged  to 
take  the  carriage  with  it.  I  took  it  to  the  Pennsylvania  Bank 
&  got  an  order  on  the  Manhattan  Bank  in  N  York  &  have  Mr 
Kinder's  receipt  for  the  order 

They  have  got  a  considerable  quantity  of  ore  out  of  the 
mine  12  some  lead  &  some  copper  but  I  do  not  hear  of  any  being 
yet  sold 

"The  lead  mine  at  "Mill  Grove,"  which  with  the  remaining  Audubon 
and  Rozier  interests  in  the  farm  had  been  taken  over  by  Dacosta's  com- 
pany in  September,  1806.  The  failure  of  Dacosta  followed  in  about  a 
year  after  the  date  of  this  letter. 


200       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Present  the  kind  regards  of  our  family  circle  to  my  daugh- 
ter, Mr  Audubon,  &  my  Grandson 13  who  I  hope  are  well 

I  remain  Gentn 

Yours  truly 

Wm  BAKEWELL 
PS 

Mr  Kinder  is  of  opinion  that  there  ought  to  be  a  renuncia- 
tion by  Lucy  of  any  claim  of  dower  upon  this  estate  to 
make  the  title  good  this  may  be  sent  on  when  you  are 
coming  this  way 

[Addressed]     MESSS  AUDUBON  &  ROZIEK. 
Merch8 

Louisville 

Kentucky — 
[Endorsed]     Recd.  May  5th.  1810 

Lucy  Green  Bakewell,  Audubon's  wife,  was  three 
years  younger  than  her  husband,  having  been  born  at 
Burton-on-Trent,  England,  in  1788.  Her  family  were 
descended  from  John  Bakewell  of  "Castle  Donning- 
ton,"  in  Leicestershire;  Robert  Bakewell,  the  geologist, 
who  came  to  the  naturalist's  defense  many  years  later, 
and  who  lived  until  1843,  was  a  nephew  of  her  grand- 
father, Joseph  Bakewell  of  Derby.  Left  an  orphan  at 
an  early  age,  Lucy's  father,  William  Bakewell,  was 
brought  up  by  an  uncle,  Thomas  Woodhouse,  a  rich 
bachelor  of  Crith,  Derbyshire,  who  eventually  left  him 
a  fortune. 

When  William  Bakewell  succeeded  to  his  uncle's  es- 
tate and  manor,  he  lived  the  life  of  a  country  gentleman, 
devoting  himself  mainly  to  shooting  and  to  the  study  of 
chemistry  and  natural  philosophy,  while  he  enjoyed  the 
friendship  of  such  men  as  Joseph  Priestley  and  Erasmus 
Darwin.  His  advocacy  of  Priestley's  republican  and 

"Victor  Gifford  Audubon,  who  was  then  nine  months  old. 


SETTLEMENT  IN  THE  WEST        201 

liberal  religious  doctrines  is  said  to  have  cost  him  the 
honorary  office  of  justice  of  the  peace  in  his  community 
and  to  have  determined  his  emigration  to  America.  His 
first  visit  to  America  was  made  in  the  summer  of  1798, 
when,  with  his  brother  Benjamin,14  he  started  an  estab- 
lishment for  brewing  English  ale  at  New  Haven; 
through  his  chemical  knowledge  and  skill  he  is  said  to 
have  reproduced  to  perfection  the  famous  Burton  ales. 
William  Bakewell  brought  his  family  to  the  United 
States  in  1802,  and  when  a  disastrous  fire  destroyed  his 
business  at  New  Haven,  he  took  up  the  large  farm  of 
"Fatland  Ford"  in  1804,  as  already  related  (p.  108). 
In  that  retired  spot  he  devoted  much  time  to  his  library 
and  laboratory,  while  living  a  life  of  easy  independence. 
If  abrupt  in  manners  and  inclined  to  severity  in  disci- 
pline, he  was  generous,  kind-hearted  and  an  ardent  re- 
publican. Mrs.  Audubon's  mother,  who  felt  keenly  the 
separation  from  her  own  people,  died  in  September, 
1804,  a  few  months  after  reaching  "Fatland  Ford,"  and 
in  the  following  year  William  Bakewell  was  married  to 
Rebecca  Smith.  This  lady  seems  to  have  taken  a  strong 
dislike  to  Audubon,  for  when  her  death  was  announced 
in  1821,15  he  referred  to  her  as  "my  constant  enemy 
.  .  .  God  forgive  her  faults." 

At  this  time  Audubon  studied  nature  for  the  pure 
love  of  it,  without  the  faintest  expectation  that  his  labors 
in  natural  history  would  ever  be  of  any  service  to  the 
world.  But  in  the  year  1810  occurred  an  event,  of  seem- 
ingly small  moment  at  the  time,  which  nevertheless  left 
a  distinct  mark  upon  his  career,  as  will  be  now  related. 

14  See  Vol.  I,  p.  153. 

"  William  Bakewell  died  at  Philadelphia  on  March  6,  of  the  same  year, 
after  suffering  from  the  effects  of  a  sunstroke,  and  was,  eventually,  buried 
at  "Fatland  Ford;"  in  1822  his  farm,  originally  of  800  acres,  passed  into 
the  hands  of  Dr.  William  Wethcrill.  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  99,  and  W.  G. 
Bakewell,  Bakewell-Page-Campbcll  (Bibl.  No.  200). 


CHAPTER  XIV 

A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS,  AND  A  SKETCH  OF  ANOTHER 

PIONEER 

Alexander  Wilson  and  his  American  Ornithology — His  canvassing  tour  of 
1810 — His  retort  to  a  Solomon  of  the  Bench — Descriptions  of  Pitts- 
burgh, Cincinnati  and  Louisville — Meeting  with  Audubon — Journey  to 
New  Orleans — Youth  in  Scotland — Weaver,  itinerant  peddler,  poet 
and  socialist — Sent  to  jail  for  libel — Emigrates  to  the  United  States — 
Finally  settles  as  a  school  teacher  near  Philadelphia — His  friendships 
with  Bartram  and  Lawson — Disappointments  in  love — Early  studies  of 
American  birds — His  drawings,  thrift,  talents  and  genius — Publication 
of  his  Ornithology — His  travels,  discouragements  and  success — His  pre- 
mature death — Conflicting  accounts  of  the  visit  to  Audubon  given  by 
the  two  naturalists — Rivalry  between  the  friends  of  Wilson,  dead,  and 
those  of  Audubon,  living — The  controversy  which  followed — An  evasive 
"Flycatcher" — Singular  history  of  the  Mississippi  Kite  plate. 

On  January  30,  1810,  a  man  of  rather  coarse  fea- 
tures, with  a  head  of  sandy  hair,  and  possessed  of  man- 
ners that  could  be  winning  or  aggressive  according  to 
his  mood,  might  have  been  seen  leaving  Philadelphia 
afoot,  for  he  had  planned  to  keep  his  expenses  down 
to  a  dollar  a  day  and  traveling  by  coach  or  on  horseback 
suited  neither  his  purse  nor  the  objects  of  his  mission. 
His  clothing  was  coarse ;  his  luggage,  with  the  exception 
of  a  fowling-piece  and  two  red-backed  volumes  of  quarto 
size,  was  of  the  lightest  description.  But,  could  we  have 
peered  between  the  covers  of  those  books,  our  curiosity 
would  have  been  whetted,  for  they  were  filled  with  col- 
ored plates  of  American  birds,  the  first-fruits  of  their 
bearer's  untrained  eye  and  hand;  the  text,  moreover, 
was  printed  in  a  style  which  would  have  done  honor  to 
anv  country. 

202 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  203 

This  man  was  Alexander  Wilson,  who,  like  Audubon, 
was  a  pioneer  in  the  study  of  the  birds  of  his  adopted 
land,  but  who  was  twenty  years  his  predecessor  in  point 
of  publication.  The  books  which  he  then  carried  were 
part  of  the  first  edition  of  his  now  famous  American 
Ornithology,  the  second  volume  of  which  had  appeared 
in  Philadelphia  at  the  beginning  of  that  year.  Though 
not  destined  to  be  completed  until  after  his  death,  this 
work  was  to  become  one  of  the  scientific  and  lit- 
erary treasures  of  the  nation,  but  it  is  not  likely  that 
one  in  ten  thousand  had  then  ever  heard  of  him,  whether 
as  poet  or  as  ornithologist,  or  cared  anything  about  his 
work  or  his  mission. 

Wilson  at  that  moment  was  starting  on  his  last  long 
journey  through  the  West  and  South,  in  search  of  new 
birds.  He  also  carried  in  his  pocket  a  subscription  list, 
and  therefore  belonged  to  that  class  of  visitor  which  is 
seldom  welcomed  with  rapture.  At  Lancaster,  Pennsyl- 
vania, Wilson's  first  important  stopping-place,  and  at 
that  time  the  capital  of  the  State,  Governor  Snyder  put 
down  his  name  for  $120,  the  price  of  the  completed  work. 
This  seemed  a  good  omen,  but,  at  Hanover,  in  the  same 
state,  an  incident  occurred  which  might  have  discour- 
aged a  less  determined  man;  the  interview  has  become 
historical,  and  we  shall  give  Wilson's  own  relation  of 
it:1 

Having  a  letter  from  Dr.  Muhlenburgh  to  a  Clergyman  in 
Hanover,  I  passed  on  through  a  well  cultivated  country,  chiefly 
inhabited  by  Germans,  to  that  place,  where  a  certain  Judge 
Hustetter  took  upon  himself  to  say,  that  such  a  book  as  mine 
ought  not  to  be  encouraged ;  as  it  was  not  within  the  reach  of 

aln  a  letter  to  Alexander  Lawson,  written  from  Pittsburgh,  on 
February  22,  1810;  see  Elliott  Coues,  "Private  Letters  of  Wilson,  Ord, 
and  Bonaparte,"  Penn  Monthly,  vol.  x,  pp.  443-455  (Philadelphia,  1879). 


204       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  commonalty;  and  therefore  inconsistent  with  our  Republi- 
can institutions !  By  the  same  mode  of  reasoning,  which  I  did 
not  dispute,  I  undertook  to  prove  him  a  greater  culprit  than 
myself,  in  erecting  a  large  elegant  three  story  Brick  house, 
so  much  more  beyond  the  reach  of  the  Commonalty  as  he  called 
them,  and  therefore  grossly  contrary  to  our  Republican  insti- 
tutions. I  harangued  this  Solomon  of  the  Bench  more  seri- 
ously afterwards,  pointing  out  to  him  the  great  influence  of 
Science  on  a  young  rising  Nation  like  ours,  till  he  began  to 
show  such  symptons  of  intellect,  as  to  seem  ashamed  of  what 
he  had  said. 

At  Pittsburgh  Wilson  met  Audubon's  old  employer 
and  relative  by  marriage,  Benjamin  Bake  well.  The 
picture  which  he  then  drew2  of  that  growing  hive  of 
industry  will  be  read  with  interest: 

On  arriving  at  the  town,  which  stands  on  a  low  flat,  and 
looks  like  a  collection  of  Blacksmith  shops,  Glass  houses,  Brew- 
eries, Forges,  and  Furnaces,  the  Monongahela  opened  to  the 
view  on  the  left  running  along  the  bottom  of  a  range  of  hills 
so  high  that  the  sun  at  this  season  sets  to  the  town  of  Pitts- 
burgh at  a  little  past  four.  This  range  continues  along  the 
Ohio  as  far  as  the  view  reaches.  The  ice  had  just  begun  to 
give  way  in  Monongahela,  and  came  down  in  vast  bodies  for  the 
three  following  days.  It  has  now  begun  in  the  Alleghany,  and 
at  the  moment  I  write  it  is  one  white  Mass  of  rushing  ice.  The 
country  beyond  the  Ohio  to  the  west  appears  a  mountainous 
and  hilly  region.  The  Monongahela  is  lined  with  Arks,  usually 
called  Kentucky  Boats,  waiting  for  the  rising  of  the  river,  & 
the  absence  of  ice,  to  descend.  A  perspective  view  of  the  town 
of  Pittsburgh  at  this  season,  with  the  numerous  arks  and  cov- 
ered keel  boats  preparing  to  descend  the  Ohio,  the  grandeur 
of  its  hills,  and  the  interesting  circumstance  of  its  three  great 
rivers — the  pillars  of  smoke  rising  from  its  Furnaces  Glass 

'See  Elliott  Coues,  loc.  cit. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  205 

works  &c.  would  make  a  noble  picture.  I  began  a  very  diligent 
search  in  the  place  the  day  after  my  arrival  for  subscribers 
and  continued  it  for  four  days.  I  succeeded  beyond  expecta- 
tion having  got  19  names  of  the  most  wealthy  and  respectable 
part  of  the  inhabitants.  The  industry  of  the  town  is  remark- 
able; every  body  you  see  is  busy;  &  as  a  proof  of  the  pros- 
perity of  the  place  an  eminent  lawyer  told  me  that  there  has  not 
been  one  suit  instituted  against  a  mercht.  of  the  town  these 
three  years !  The  Glass  Houses,  of  which  there  are  3,  have 
more  demands  for  Glass  than  they  are  able  to  answer.  Mr. 
Bakewell  the  proprietor  of  the  best,  shewed  ....  yesterday  a 
Chandelier  of  his  manufacture  highly  ornamented,  .  .  .  for 
which  he  received  300  dollars.  It  would  ornament  the  ....  in 
Philada.  and  is  perfectly  transparent. 

Eight  days  after  he  had  reached  Pittsburgh,  Wilson 
bravely  launched  a  little  skiff,  which  he  christened  the 
Ornithologist,  and  began  an  arduous  and  perilous 
journey  to  Cincinnati,  Louisville  and  New  Orleans,  a 
distance  of  two  thousand  miles.  "In  this  lonesome  man- 
ner," he  wrote,  "with  full  leisure  for  observation  and 
reflection,  exposed  to  hardships  all  day,  and  hard  berths 
all  night,  I  persevered  from  the  24th  of  February  to 
Sunday  evening,  March  17th,  when  I  moored  my  skiff 
safely  in  Bear  Grass  Creek,  at  the  rapids  of  the  Ohio, 
after  a  voyage  of  seven  hundred  and  twenty  miles." 

Cincinnati,  then  a  town  of  five  hundred  houses,  was 
reached  on  the  ninth  of  March ;  while  there  Wilson  made 
the  acquaintance  of  Dr.  Daniel  Drake,  who  was  later 
Audubon's  friend,  and  examined  a  collection  of  Indian 
relics  which  had  been  taken  from  a  freshly  opened 
mound.  He  left  Cincinnati  convinced  that  its  well-to- 
do  class  must  be  a  very  thoughtful  people,  so  many  of 
them,  when  approached  for  a  subscription  to  his  work, 
having  replied  that  they  would  "think  about  it."  Upon 


206       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

nearing  Louisville  at  nightfall  he  became  alarmed  lest 
he  should  be  drawn  into  the  suction  of  the  Falls,  as  no 
lights  could  be  seen  on  the  banks:  cautiously  coasting 
along  the  shore,  where  he  encountered  many  logs  and 
sawyers,  at  last  he  entered  the  Creek  and  secured  his 
skiff  to  a  Kentucky  boat;  then,  "loading  myself  with  my 
baggage,"  he  wrote,  "I  groped  my  way  through  a  swamp 
up  to  the  town."3  When  Wilson  had  seen  the  Falls  by 
daylight,  he  felt  that  his  fears  of  the  night  before  had 
been  groundless,  and  declared  that  he  should  have  no 
hesitation  in  navigating  them  single-handed. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  follow  Wilson's  journey  a 
little  further,  before  returning  to  the  Louisville  visit. 
After  passing  a  few  days  in  Audubon's  town,  he  struck 
out  into  the  heart  of  Kentucky,  calling  at  Shelbyville, 
Frankfort  and  Lexington,  and  eventually  reaching 
Nashville,  Tennessee.  Not  far  from  the  latter  place  he 
met  a  landlord  of  admirable  discrimination,  Isaac  Wal- 
ton by  name,  who  showed  himself  worthy  of  his  illustri- 
ous ancestor  by  declaring  that  Wilson  was  evidently 
traveling  for  the  good  of  the  world,  and  added:  "I 
cannot,  and  will  not  charge  you  anything.  Whenever 
you  come  this  way,  call  and  stay  with  me;  you  shall  be 
welcome." 

At  Nashville  Wilson  wrote  to  Miss  Sarah  Miller,  the 
lady  to  whom  he  was  engaged  but  whom  he  did  not  live 
to  marry:  "Nine  hundred  miles  distant  from  you  sits 
Wilson,  the  hunter  of  birds'  nests  and  sparrows,  just 
preparing  to  enter  on  a  wilderness  of  780  miles — most 
of  it  in  the  territory  of  Indians — alone  but  in  good  spir- 
its, and  expecting  to  have  every  pocket  crammed  with 
skins  of  new  and  extraordinary  birds  before  he  reach 

3  Letter  to  Alexander  Lawson,  dated  at  Lexington,  April  4,  1810;  see 
Grosart,  Poems  and  Literary  Prose  of  Alexander  Wilson,  vol.  i,  p.  189. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  207 

the  City  of  New  Orleans."  Continuing  on  his  course 
in  search  of  new  birds  and  subscribers,  Wilson  arrived 
at  Natchez  on  May  18,  and,  passing  through  Louisiana, 
on  the  sixth  day  of  June  he  entered  New  Orleans,  where 
his  spirits  were  immediately  raised  by  the  accession  of 
sixty  new  names  to  his  list.  After  six  months  of  con- 
tinuous effort,  traveling  now  in  a  small  boat,  now  on 
the  back  of  a  horse,  but  frequently  on  foot,  drenched  by 
torrents  of  rain  or  scorched  by  the  unaccustomed  heat, 
often  compelled  to  drink  the  poisonous  water  of  cane 
brakes  in  Mississippi  (to  which  must  be  attributed  an 
attack  of  malarial  fever,  which  he  was  able  with  diffi- 
culty to  throw  off,  but  from  which,  in  all  probability, 
he  never  fully  recovered),  he  returned  to  New  York 
by  sea,  and  on  September  2,  1810,  was  again  in  Phila- 
delphia. 

On  this  journey  Wilson  was  a  pioneer  in  much  of 
the  territory  which  Audubon  had  hardly  begun  to  ex- 
plore, but  which  later  became  the  scene  of  his  wander- 
ings and  adventures  for  many  a  year.  At  Louisville  the 
two  naturalists  met,  but  they  did  not  become  good 
friends;  though  devoted  to  the  same  objects,  differences 
in  temperament  might  in  any  event  have  kept  them 
apart.  Unfortunately,  the  feelings  of  jealousy  which 
were  then  aroused,  or  which  were  stirred  up  at  a  later 
day,  were  fostered  by  some  of  Wilson's  injudicious 
friends  to  such  an  extent  that  from  the  moment  Audu- 
bon's  work  became  known,  and  long  before  he  had  pub- 
lished a  line,  they  became  as  thorns  in  his  path,  and 
they  continued  to  vex  him  for  thirty  years.  It  is  not 
easy  to  reach  a  fair  judgment  in  this  matter  now,  and 
it  would  be  impossible  to  do  so  without  a  better  under- 
standing of  the  man  who  suddenly  appeared  upon  Au- 
dubon's  horizon  at  Louisville  in  1810  and  then  vanished. 


208       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Because  of  the  peculiar  relations  which  existed  between 
these  two  pioneers,  we  must  follow  the  history  of  the 
elder  man  a  little  more  closely. 

Alexander  Wilson  was  the  son  of  a  weaver  at  Pais- 
ley, Scotland,  where  he  was  born  in  1766;  he  was  thus 
Audubon's  senior  by  nineteen  years.  His  father,  who 
was  esteemed  for  his  honesty  and  intelligence,  had  tasted 
prosperity,  but  irremediable  poverty  fell  to  his  lot  in 
later  life.  Alexander,  the  younger  son,  was  motherless 
at  ten,  and  the  stepmother  that  soon  appeared  seems 
to  have  shown  him  scant  sympathy,  or,  at  all  events, 
never  won  his  affection.  Alexander  Wilson's  youth 
unhappily  coincided  with  an  era  of  bad  feeling  in  his 
native  land;  the  times  were  hard  in  bonny  Scotland, 
education  was  stagnant,  and  the  public  morals  were 
debased.  Wilson  was  a  child  of  his  times;  like  thou- 
sands of  other  youths,  he  was  bound  to  suffer  from  the 
conditions  of  his  early  environment,  but  unlike  many 
thousands  of  his  day,  he  was  possessed  of  talents  and 
ambition  which  bitter  adversity  tended  to  sharpen  and 
could  never  repress. 

At  thirteen  young  Wilson  was  taken  from  school  and 
apprenticed  to  a  weaver,  William  Duncan,  his  brother- 
in-law,  and  for  three  years  he  was  no  stranger  to  hard 
work  and  the  birchen  rod.  For  nearly  three  years  more, 
as  master  weaver,  he  knew  little  beyond  the  grind  and 
grime  of  the  factory  and  the  society  of  factory  hands. 
At  eighteen,  however,  his  rebellious  spirit  struck,  and 
for  ten  years  he  appeared  in  the  role  of  itinerant  peddler, 
poet  and  orator,  and  as  socialist  to  the  extent  of  cham- 
pioning the  oppressed  weaver  class.  At  one  time  Wil- 
son came  into  correspondence  with  Robert  Burns  and 
later  made  his  acquaintance.  His  best  dialect  poem, 
"Watty  and  Meg,  or  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew,"  pub- 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  209 

lished  anonymously  as  a  penny  chap-book  in  1782,  was 
his  one  popular  success  in  the  character  of  poet ;  accord- 
ing to  report  it  was  attributed  to  Burns,  who  admitted 
that  he  would  have  been  glad  to  have  written  the  verses, 
which  sold  so  freely  that  a  hundred  thousand  copies 
were  disposed  of  in  a  few  weeks.4  In  the  disputes  be- 
tween capital  and  labor  which  arose  at  Paisley,  Wilson 
took  an  active  part.  In  connection  with  them  he  pub- 
lished a  number  of  lampoons  in  verse,  for  which  he  was 
convicted  of  libel  and  was  compelled  to  burn  his  satires 
at  the  town  cross.  In  one  instance,  which  occurred  in 
February,  1793,  a  petty  tyrant  whom  he  had  riddled 
exacted  the  fine,5  and  because  of  his  inability  to  pay 
Wilson  was  sent  to  jail,  where  he  languished  for  over 
three  months. 

Under  the  pressure  of  such  persecutions,  hard  times, 
and  possibly  from  disappointment  in  an  affair  of  the 
heart,  Wilson  decided  to  emigrate.  Practically  driven 
out  in  rags  from  the  country  which  one  day  was  to  raise 
a  monument  to  his  memory,  at  the  age  of  twenty-eight 
he  sailed  from  Belfast  with  his  nephew,  William  Dun- 
can, for  the  Eldorado  of  the  New  World.  Wilson  slept 
on  deck  throughout  the  entire  voyage  of  fifty-three 
days,  and  landed  at  New  Castle,  Delaware,  with  the 
clothes  on  his  back  and  an  old  fowling-piece  as  his  only 
possessions.  This  was  on  July  14,  1794,  nine  years  be- 
fore John  James  Audubon  left  Nantes.  Taking  train 
"number  11,"  in  the  parlance  of  knights  of  the  road, 
the  two  immigrants  first  walked  to  Wilmington  in  search 
of  employment,  and  finding  none  there,  went  on  twenty- 
nine  miles  farther  to  Philadelphia. 

4  See  Grosart,  Poems  and  Literary  Prose  of  Alexander  Wilson,  vol.  i, 
p.  xxiv. 

•For  "The  Shark,  or  Lang  Mills  Detected,"  a  satire  directed  against 
William  Sharp,  a  manufacturer  of  Paisley;  Wilson  was  fined  £12  13s.  6d. 


210       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

The  story  is  told  that  while  they  made  their 
way  through  the  woods  of  Delaware,  Wilson 
shot  a  Red-headed  Woodpecker  and  met  with 
the  Cardinal  Grosbeak;  as  he  often  referred  to  the 
pleasure  which  the  sight  of  these  beautiful  birds  had 
given  him,  the  incident,  if  it  really  occurred,  may  have 
played  a  part  in  the  inspiration,  which  later  came  to 
Wilson,  of  becoming  the  historian  of  American  bird 
life. 

After  eight  hard  years  of  shifting  about,  during 
which  Wilson  tried  day-labor,  weaving,  peddling  and 
school  teaching,  working  long  hours  at  miserable  pay,  he 
finally  settled  as  a  country  school  teacher  near  New 
York.  On  the  twelfth  of  July,  1801,  he  wrote  to  a  fellow 
teacher  and  friend,  Charles  Orr,  who  was  then  living  at 
Philadelphia:  "I  live  six  miles  from  Newark  and  twelve 
miles  from  New  York,  in  a  settlement  of  canting, 
preaching,  praying,  and  snivelling  ignorant  Presbyte- 
rians. They  pay  their  minister  250  pounds  for  preach- 
ing twice  a  week,  and  their  teacher  40  dollars  a  quarter 
for  the  most  spirit-sinking,  laborious  work — 6,  I  may 
say  12  times  weekly."  To  the  same  friend,  in  1802, 
he  confided:  "My  disposition  is  to  love  those  who  love 
me  with  all  the  warmth  of  enthusiasm,  but  to  feel  with 
the  keenest  sensibility  the  smallest  appearance  of  neglect 
or  contempt  from  those  I  regard." 

In  1802,  at  the  age  of  thirty-six,  Wilson  decided  to 
take  up  a  school  at  Gray's  Ferry,  on  the  Schuylkill 
River,  in  Kingsessing  Township,  then  a  small  settlement 
four  miles  from  Philadelphia.  A  year  later,  in  1803, 
John  James  Audubon  was  sent  to  America  to  learn 
English  and  enter  trade,  and,  as  chance  would  have  it, 
settled  on  the  banks  of  the  same  river,  not  many  miles 
from  Wilson's  old  schoolhouse.  In  one  respect  the 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  211 

older  man  was  the  more  fortunate,  for,  as  will  be  seen, 
he  found  close  by  his  door  an  excellent  naturalist  who 
played  the  part  of  mentor. 

On  February  14, 1802,  while  at  Philadelphia,  Wilson 
wrote  to  Orr: 

On  the  25th.  of  this  month  I  remove  to  the  schoolhouse  be- 
yond Gray's  Ferry  to  succeed  the  present  teacher  there.  I 
shall  recommence  that  painful  profession  once  more  with  the 
same  gloomy,  sullen  resignation  that  a  prisoner  re-enters  his 
dungeon  or  a  malefactor  mounts  the  scaffold ;  fate  urges  him, 
necessity  me.  The  agreement  between  us  is  to  make  the  school 
equal  to  100  dollars  per  quarter,  but  not  more  than  50  are  to 
be  admitted.  The  present  pedagogue  is  a  noisy,  outrageous 
fat  old  captain  of  a  ship,  who  has  taught  these  ten  years  in 
different  places.  You  may  hear  him  bawling  300  yards  off. 
The  boys  seem  to  pay  as  little  regard  to  him  as  ducks  to  the 
rumbling  of  a  stream  under  them.  I  shall  have  many  diffi- 
culties to  overcome  in  establishing  my  own  rules  and  authority. 

At  Gray's  Ferry,  where  he  was  then  settled,  Wilson 
again  wrote  in  July:  "Leave  that  cursed  town  at  least 
one  day.  It  is  the  most  striking  emblem  of  purgatory, 
at  least  to  me,  that  exists.  No  poor  soul  is  happier  to 
escape  from  Bridewell  than  I  am  to  smell  the  fresh  air 
and  gaze  over  the  green  fields  after  a  day  or  two's  resi- 
dence in  Philadelphia  .  .  ." 

George  Ord,  W  ilson's  staunch  friend,  literary  execu- 
tor, biographer,  and  editor  of  the  last  two  volumes  of 
the  American  Ornithology,  thus  characterized  him:  "He 
was  of  the  genus  irritabile,  and  was  obstinate  in  opin- 
ion." He  would  acknowledge  error  when  discovered  by 
himself,  "but  he  could  not  endure  to  be  told  of  his  mis- 
takes. Hence  his  associates  had  to  be  sparing  of 
criticism,  through  fear  of  forfeiting  his  friendship.  With 


212       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

almost  all  his  friends  he  had  occasionally,  arising  from 
a  collision  of  opinion,  some  slight  misunderstanding, 
which  was  soon  passed  over,  leaving  no  disagreeable 
impression.  But  an  act  of  disrespect  he  could  ill  brook, 
and  a  wilful  injury  he  would  seldom  forgive." 

In  1801,  while  teaching  and  studying  German  at 
Milestown,  Pennsylvania,  Wilson  had  another  unfor- 
tunate love  affair,  in  this  instance  with  a  woman  already 
married.  To  this  he  alluded  in  letters  written  in  the 
summer  of  that  year  to  his  friend  Orr,  with  whom  he 
later  quarreled.  On  August  7,  1801,  he  wrote:  "The 
world  is  lost  forever  to  me  and  I  to  the  world.  No  time 
nor  distance  can  ever  banish  her  image  from  my  mind. 
It  is  forever  present  with  me,  and  my  heart  is  broken 
with  the  most  melancholy  reflections." 

At  Gray's  Ferry,  however,  Wilson  soon  found  in  the 
estimable  William  Bartram,  then  in  his  sixty-first  year, 
the  sympathetic  adviser,  kind  teacher,  and  judicious 
friend  that  he  most  needed,  for  though  Wilson  took  the 
initiative  in  his  ornithological  plans,  it  was  the  kindly 
Bartram  who  eventually  extended  a  helping  hand.  Both 
Bartram  and  Lawson,  the  engraver,  urged  him  to  devote 
his  leisure  to  drawing,  as  a  foil  to  his  melancholic  tenden- 
cies. Wilson  did  not  hesitate  long,  for  on  June  1,  1803, 
he  confided  to  a  friend  in  Scotland  that  he  had  begun  to 
make  a  "collection  of  our  finest  birds."  Early  in  1804 
his  purpose  was  clearly  fixed,  and  on  March  12  of  that 
year  he  wrote  to  Alexander  Lawson:  "I  am  most 
earnestly  bent  on  pursuing  my  plan  of  making  a  collec- 
tion of  all  the  birds  in  this  part  of  North  America  .  .  . 
I  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  the  building  of  airy 
castles  and  brain  windmills,  that  it  has  become  one  of 
my  earthly  comforts,  a  sort  of  rough  bone,  that  amuses 
me  when  sated  with  the  dull  drudgery  of  life."  A 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  213 

little  later  in  the  same  month  we  find  him  appealing  to 
Bartram  for  exact  names,  when  he  writes: 

I  send  for  your  amusement  a  few  attempts  at  some  of  our 
indigenous  birds,  hoping  that  your  good  nature  will  excuse  their 
deficiencies,  while  you  point  them  out  to  me.  .  .  .  They  were 
chiefly  coloured  by  candle-light.  I  have  now  got  my  collection 
of  native  birds  considerably  enlarged,  and  shall  endeavor,  if 
possible,  to  obtain  all  the  smaller  ones  this  summer.  Be  pleased 
to  mark  on  the  drawings,  with  a  pencil,  the  names  of  each  bird, 
as,  except  three  or  four,  I  do  not  know  them. 

Wilson,  practically  self-taught  in  everything,  with 
fingers  stiffened  by  the  hard  labor  of  his  hands,  thus 
began  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight  to  make  his  drawings 
of  birds,  before  he  knew  the  names  of  his  subjects,  and 
twenty  years  before  Audubon's  talents  were  known  to 
any  but  members  of  his  own  family  and  a  few  intimate 
friends.  The  only  aid  in  drawing  which  Wilson  ever 
received  appears  to  have  come  from  the  hints  which 
Lawson  supplied.  Nevertheless,  the  best  of  Alexander 
Wilson's  original  drawings  represent  a  degree  of  ex- 
cellence and  honest  workmanship  of  which  he  had  no 
need  to  be  ashamed,  and  in  many  instances  he  owed 
far  less  to  his  engraver,  Alexander  Lawson,  than  did 
his  great  rival  to  Robert  Havell. 

In  1880  Dr.  Elliott  Coues  examined  a  large  collection 
of  original  Wilson  and  Audubon  drawings  and  manu- 
scripts, "owned  and  kept  with  the  greed  of  a  genuine 
bibliomaniac"  by  Joseph  M.  Wade,  then  editor  of  Fa- 
miliar Science  and  Fancier's  Journal.  If  not  Wilson's 
portfolio  itself,  its  contents,  at  least,  said  Dr.  Coues, 
were  then  in  Mr.  Wade's  possession,  and  this  series  of 
Wilson's  drawings  included,  he  thought,  more  than  half 


214       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

of  the  originals  of  his  famous  plates.     To  quote  Dr. 
Coues:6 

In  handling  these  drawings  and  paintings,  of  all  degrees 
of  completeness,  one  of  sensibility  could  but  experience  some 
emotions  he  would  not  care  to  formulate  in  words  ...  I  was 
fairly  oppressed  with  the  sad  story  of  poverty,  even  destitution, 
which  these  wan  sheets  of  coarse  paper  told.  Some  of  Wilson's 
originals  are  on  the  fly-leaves  of  old  books,  showing  binder's 
marks  along  one  edge.  One  of  the  best  portraits,  that  of  the 
Duck  Hawk,  is  on  two  pieces  of  paper  pasted  together.  The 
man  was  actually  too  poor  to  buy  paper!  Some  of  the  draw- 
ings are  on  both  sides  of  the  paper;  some  show  a  full  picture 
on  one  side,  and  part  of  a  mutilated  finished  painting  on  the 
other.  Some  show  the  rubbing  process  by  which  they  were 
transferred.  They  are  in  all  stages  of  completeness,  from  the 
rudest  outlines  to  the  finished  painting. 

I  know  full  well  that  in  1804,  when  Wilson  had  fairly 
begun  his  work  on  birds,  he  was  poor  enough,  but  I 
hesitate  to  believe  upon  such  evidence  that* he  was  too 
poor  to  buy  decent  drawing  materials.  Wilson  doubt- 
less practiced  economy  in  these  matters  as  in  everything 
else,  through  his  ingrained  habit  of  Scotch  thrift,  and 
he  was  probably  quite  as  well-to-do  then  as  five  years 
before,  when  out  of  his  slender  earnings  he  was  able  to 
lay  money  aside.7  Later,  to  be  sure,  his  modest  savings 
were  quite  consumed  by  his  Ornithology,  and  then  Wil- 
liam Bartram  came  to  his  aid,  even  giving  him  a  home 
in  his  own  house.  It  is  also  wide  of  the  mark  to  con- 

€See   Bibliography,  No.  43. 

7  At  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  on  October  3,  1799,  Alexander  Wilson 
sent  George  Simpson,  Esq.,  a  State  Treasurer's  check  in  favor  of  Joseph 
Brown  for  $475,  to  be  entered  to  the  credit  of  Mr.  Brown  as  one  install- 
ment on  38  shares  of  scrip  in  the  new  loan  at  eight  per  cent,  in  the 
names  of  Thomas  Eyes,  14  shares;  Alexander  Wilson,  14  shares;  and 
Kenneth  Sewell,  10  shares. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  215 

elude  from  his  fugitive  letters  or  from  his  drawings,  as 
this  critic  has  done,  that  Wilson  was  possessed  of  genius 
only,  and  "had  nothing  else,  not  even  talent  and  ability." 
Wilson  certainly  had  a  talent  for  writing  and  cultivated 
it  with  marked  success;  even  his  verse  was  not  all  of  a 
"despicable  mediocrity."  In  the  art  of  drawing,  how- 
ever, his  natural  gifts  were  of  a  very  modest  sort,  and 
what  he  achieved  was  the  result  of  the  most  painstaking 
effort.  Of  course  he  was  not  a  finished  scholar,  as  grad- 
uates from  the  school  of  adversity  seldom  are,  but  he 
had  a  passion  for  knowledge  and  the  determination  to 
excel.  His  genius  was  not  fully  displayed  until  a  pow- 
erful motive,  the  ambition  to  make  known  the  birds  of 
his  adopted  land,  had  possessed  his  spirit  and  taxed  his 
powers  to  their  utmost  capacity. 

Shortly  after  he  had  settled  at  Gray's  Ferry,  Wil- 
son's susceptible  nature  was  touched  by  another  ro- 
mance, which  was  again  unfortunate  for  the  poet  and 
dreamer,  but  was  probably  the  making  of  the  ornitholo- 
gist. Bartram's  Botanic  Gardens,  on  the  outskirts  of 
Philadelphia,  had  long  been  famous  for  their  large  and 
choice  collection  of  native  plants,  gathered  by  the  inde- 
fatigable zeal  of  their  worthy  founder,  John  Bartram, 
Quaker  philosopher,  traveler,  botanist,  agriculturalist 
and  nurseryman ;  but  the  fairest  flower  in  the  whole  col- 
lection at  that  time  is  said  to  have  been  Miss  Anne 
Bartram,  daughter  of  John  the  younger,  niece  of  Wil- 
liam, who  then  superintended  the  "Kingsess  Gardens," 
granddaughter  of  the  founder,  and  heiress  to  the  estate. 
To  this  Quaker  maid  Wilson  addressed  a  number  of  his 
poems,  and  he  interested  her  in  the  drawing  of  birds; 
on  March  29,  1804,  he  wrote  to  her  uncle:  "I  send  a 
small  scroll  of  drawing  papers  for  Miss  Nancy.  She 
will  oblige  me  by  accepting  it."  This  little  incident 


216       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

would  show  that  Wilson  was  no  stranger  to  the  use  of 
good  drawing  materials,  however  frugal  his  habits  in 
this  respect  may  have  been.  The  young  lady  is  said 
to  have  been  not  indifferent  to  her  poet  lover,  and  some 
of  her  family  were  friendly;  the  father,  however,  had 
no  notion  of  bestowing  his  daughter's  hand  upon  a  poor 
schoolmaster,  and  for  the  third  time  Wilson's  dreams  of 
domestic  bliss  were  shattered. 

Such  experiences  no  doubt  tended  to  chasten  the  sen- 
sitive spirit  of  this  real  genius,  whose  whole  life  seemed 
to  have  been  a  continuous  and  losing  struggle,  while  he 
felt  within  him  an  inspiration  and  a  power  that  had  failed 
to  find  adequate  expression  in  labor  at  the  loom,  in  verse, 
or  in  the  hated  vocation  of  teaching  rough  country 
schools  at  starvation  wages.  Though  depressed  by  his 
misadventures  in  love,  Wilson  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  embittered,  and  by  way  of  diversion,  he  set  out 
in  the  autumn  of  1804,  on  a  long  walking  tour  from 
Philadelphia  to  Niagara  Falls  and  back;  in  the  follow- 
ing winter  the  experiences  of  this  journey  were  embodied 
in  a  descriptive  poem  of  2,018  lines  which  he  called  "The 
Foresters,"  an  effort  which  would  have  been  less  prosaic 
if  frankly  expressed  in  prose.  Wilson's  friendship  for 
the  Bartrams  continued  under  the  changed  conditions, 
and  he  was  invited  to  make  his  home  under  their  hos- 
pitable roof.  He  was  now  free  to  devote  himself  heart 
and  soul  to  birds  and  to  birds  alone. 

Wilson  etched  the  first  two  plates  of  his  American 
Ornithology  before  he  had  obtained  an  engraver  or  a 
publisher.  In  April,  1806,  he  resigned  his  school  at 
Gray's  Ferry  to  accept  an  editorial  position  on  a  New 
American  Cyclopaedia?  then  in  course  of  preparation, 

8  This  was  the  American  edition  of  Abraham  Rees'  revision  of  Ephraim 
Chambers'  Cyclopaedia,  which  had  appeared  in  London  in  1728;  it  was  pub- 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  217 

at  a  salary  of  $900  a  year.  Samuel  F.  Bradford,  the 
publisher  of  this  work,  soon  became  interested  in  Wil- 
son's projected  American  Ornithology  and  agreed  to 
publish  it.  It  became  the  ambition  of  both  author  and 
publisher  to  produce  the  work  in  a  superior  style,  and 
to  make  it  as  perfect  and  complete  an  American  prod- 
uct as  possible.  Only  the  pigments  used  in  coloring 
some  of  the  plates  were  imported  from  Europe.9 

Wilson  issued  in  April,  1807,  an  elaborate  prospectus 
of  his  proposed  Ornithology,  in  which  he  stated  that  the 
completed  work  would  comprise  ten  volumes,  to  cost 
$120,  and  that  it  would  be  illustrated  by  plates,  engraved 
and  colored  by  hand,  after  the  manner  of  a  carefully 
prepared  sample  which  was  issued  with  the  printed  an- 
nouncement. In  September,  1808,  as  already  intimated, 
the  first  volume  of  the  American  Ornithology10  appeared 

lished  at  Philadelphia,  in  forty-one  quarto  volumes  of  text  and  six  volumes 
of  plates,  by  Samuel  F.  Bradford  and  the  Messrs.  Murray,  Fairman  & 
Company,  1810-1824. 

9  "The  types,"  said  Charles  Robert  Leslie,  "which  were  very  beautiful, 
were  cast  in  America,  and  though  at  that  time  paper  was  largely  imported, 
he  [Mr.  Bradford]  determined  that  the  paper  should  be  of  American 
manufacture;  and  I  remember  that  Ames,  the  paper  maker,  carried  his 
patriotism  so  far  that  he  declared  that  he  would  use  only  American  rags 
in  making  it."  (Autobiographical  Recollections,  Boston,  1860.) 

10 The  American  Ornithology:  or,  the  Natural  History  of  the  Birds 
of  the  United  States:  Illustrated  with  Plates  Engraved  and  Colored  from 
Original  Drawings  taken  from  Nature,  by  Alexander  Wilson,  was  published 
in  nine  imperial  quarto  volumes  by  Messrs.  Bradford  and  Inskeep,  at 
Philadelphia,  1808-1814.  Each  volume  contained  nine  plates  and  from 
100  to  167  pages  of  text,  exclusive  of  prefatory  and  other  matter.  The 
eighth  volume,  which  was  nearly  ready  for  press  at  the  time  of  the 
author's  death,  was  edited  by  George  Ord,  Wilson's  friend  and  executor; 
the  final  volume,  which  was  wholly  by  Ord,  and  which  was  issued  in 
the  same  year,  contained  a  life  of  Wilson.  After  the  appearance  of  the 
initial  volume,  the  edition  was  extended  to  500  copies  and  the  first  volume 
was  entirely  reset.  Ord's  life  of  Wilson  was  expanded  for  a  three-volume 
edition  of  the  Ornithology,  and  from  oversheets  of  this  work  was  pro- 
duced as  a  separate  volume  in  1828  (see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  223). 

Wilson's  published  lists  of  subscribers  show  449  names,  calling  for  458 
copies,  more  than  half  of  which  were  taken  by  residents  of  Pennsylvania, 
New  York  and  Louisiana;  70  were  subscribed  for  in  Philadelphia,  chiefly 
by  business  men,  artists,  and  "those  in  the  middle  class  of  society;"  New 


218       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

in  an  edition  of  200  copies.  Wilson  immediately  started 
on  a  canvassing  tour  of  New  England,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  visited  the  principal  towns  and  colleges,  going 
east  to  Portland,  Maine,  and  as  far  north  as  Dartmouth 
College,  in  New  Hampshire,  where  President  John 
Wheelock  and  the  professors  received  him  with  marked 
attention.  On  this  journey  Wilson  did  not  average  one 
subscriber  a  day,  and  he  was  forced  to  conclude  that  he 
had  "been  mistaken  in  publishing  a  work  too  good  for 
the  country";  "it  is  a  fault,"  he  said,  "not  likely  to  be 
repeated,  and  will  pretty  severely  correct  itself."  Dan- 
iel D.  Tompkins,  Governor  of  New  York,  coolly  said 
to  him:  "I  would  not  give  one  hundred  dollars  for  all 
the  birds  you  intend  to  describe,"  not  even  if  "I  had  them 
alive";  but  a  future  Governor  of  that  State,  De  Witt 
Clinton,  the  friend  of  science  and  scientific  men,  gave 
him  the  substantial  encouragement  he  craved.  When 
his  second  volume  was  ready  for  issue,  Wilson  wrote  to 
Bartram:  "This  undertaking  has  involved  me  in  diffi- 
culties and  expenses  which  I  never  dreamt  of,  and  I 
have  never  yet  received  one  cent  from  it.  I  am,  there- 
fore, a  volunteer  in  the  cause  of  Natural  History  im- 
pelled by  nobler  views  than  those  of  money." 

In  the  autumn  of  1808  Wilson  made  a  long  and 
arduous  tour  of  the  South,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
visited  every  important  town  along  the  southern  Atlan- 
tic seaboard,  and  though  it  cost  him  dear,  he  obtained 

Orleans  in  seventeen  days  gave  him  60  subscribers;  Europe  supplied  15, 
among  whom  were  William  Roscoe,  later  a  patron  of  Audubon,  and 
Benjamin  West,  the  artist.  Wilson  figured  and  described  278  species  of 
American  birds  (within  the  limits  of  the  United  States),  of  which  56 
were  supposed  to  be  new,  and  the  total  number,  given  by  Wilson  and 
Ord,  is  said  to  be  320.  Twenty-three  species  were  erroneously  supposed 
to  be  identical  with  their  European  counterparts,  yet  all  of  Wilson's  birds 
except  the  "Small-headed  Flycatcher,"  referred  to  at  the  end  of  this 
chapter,  have  been  identified.  Considering  the  time  and  the  difficulties 
under  which  he  labored,  his  mistakes  were  remarkably  few. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  219 

250  subscribers;  it  was  then  that  his  publishers  decided 
to  extend  the  original  edition  of  his  work  to  500  copies. 
His  longer  and  more  perilous  journey  of  1810,  when  his 
meeting  with  Audubon  occurred,  has  already  been  de- 
scribed. In  1812,  after  the  sixth  volume  of  the  Orni- 
thology had  appeared,  he  again  resumed  his  travels  in 
the  East  and  went  as  far  north  as  Burlington,  on  Lake 
Champlain ;  at  Haverhill,  New  Hampshire,  he  was  sum- 
marily arrested  and  thrown  into  jail,  the  people  of  the 
town,  utterly  unable  to  comprehend  the  nature  of  his 
pursuits,  suspecting  that  in  his  real  capacity  he  was  act- 
ing as  a  spy  in  the  employ  of  the  Canadian  Government. 
The  seventh  and  last  volume  of  the  Ornithology  which 
Wilson  lived  to  complete  made  its  appearance  in  the 
spring  of  1813.  He  had  then  been  obliged  to  relinquish 
his  work  on  the  Cyclopcedia,  and  was  reduced  to  the  pit- 
tance derived  from  the  coloring  of  his  own  plates. 

Alexander  Wilson  died  at  Philadelphia,  after  a  brief 
illness,  on  August  23,  1813.  A  story  was  current  that 
his  end  was  saddened,  if  not  hastened,  by  the  dishonesty 
of  his  publishers,  but  I  cannot  vouch  for  it.  Audubon 
may  have  had  this  report  in  mind  when  he  wrote  his 
name  in  the  hotel  register  at  Niagara  Falls 11  on  August 
24, 1824 ;  and  added  that  he  would  never  die,  like  Wilson, 
"under  the  lash  of  a  bookseller."  Even  as  late  as  1879 
Miss  Malvina  Lawson,  daughter  of  Wilson's  friend  and 
engraver,  left  no  doubt  as  to  her  belief  when  she  wrote : 
"and  to  his  other  trials  was  added  the  fact  that  killed 
him, — the  dishonesty  of  his  publisher."12 

When  we  consider  that  Wilson's  entire  working  pe- 
riod on  the  Ornithology  was  not  over  ten  years,  and  that 


11  See  Vol.  I,  p.  340. 

"See  a  letter  to  Professor  S.  S.  Haldeman,  dated  February  6,  1879, 
in  Penn  Monthly,  vol.  x  (Philadelphia,  1879). 


220       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

at  the  age  of  forty-seven  he  was  called  to  lay  down  his 
pen  and  brush  forever;  that  he  produced  in  this  brief 
space  a  work  of  great  originality  and  charm,  which  did 
inestimable  service  in  promoting  the  cause  of  natural 
history  in  both  America  and  England,  and  which  is  likely 
to  be  read  and  prized  for  centuries  to  come,  the  achieve- 
ment of  this  man  is  little  short  of  marvelous.  Knowing 
also  the  disabilities  under  which  he  labored,  we  are  more 
than  ready  to  temper  our  judgment  with  sympathy,  and 
to  overlook  any  faults  which  his  character  may  have 
displayed.  These  indeed,  we  believe,  were  for  the  most 
part  of  a  very  trifling  nature;  those  who  knew  Wilson 
best  have  all  testified  to  his  kindness  of  heart,  his  liber- 
ality, and  his  high  sense  of  honor. 

We  must  now  return  to  the  meeting  of  our  two  pio- 
neers, which  has  been  the  bone  of  so  much  acrimonious 
contention.  On  his  long  journey  to  the  Middle  West 
and  South,  Wilson  reached  Louisville  on  a  Saturday 
evening,  the  seventh  of  March,  1810,  and  put  up  at  the 
tavern  of  the  "Indian  Queen,"  where,  as  it  happened, 
Audubon  was  then  living  with  his  family ;  after  spending 
five  days  in  and  about  the  town,  he  again  set  out  on  foot 
for  Frankfort,  on  the  morning  of  Friday,  the  twenty- 
third.  Audubon  has  given  the  following  account  in  the 
"Episode"  of  "Louisville  in  Kentucky":13 

One  fair  morning,  I  was  surprised  by  the  sudden  entrance 
into  our  counting-room  [at  Louisville]  of  Mr.  Alexander  Wil- 
son, the  celebrated  author  of  the  "American  Ornithology,"  of 
whose  existence  I  had  never  until  that  moment  been  apprised. 
This  happened  in  March,  1810.  How  well  do  I  remember  him, 
as  he  then  walked  up  to  me!  His  long,  rather  hooked  nose, 
the  keenness  of  his  eyes,  and  his  prominent  cheek-bones,  stamped 
his  countenance  with  a  peculiar  character.  His  dress,  too,  was 

33  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  4-37. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  221 

of  a  kind  not  usually  seen  in  that  part  of  the  country ;  a  short 
coat,  trousers,  and  a  waistcoat  of  grey  cloth.  His  stature 
was  not  above  the  middle  size.  He  had  two  volumes  under  his 
arm,  and  as  he  approached  the  table  at  which  I  was  working, 
I  thought  I  discovered  something  like  astonishment  in  his 
countenance.  He,  however,  immediately  proceeded  to  disclose 
the  object  of  his  visit,  which  was  to  procure  subscriptions  for 
his  work.  He  opened  his  books,  explained  the  nature  of  his 
occupations,  and  requested  my  patronage. 

I  felt  surprised  and  gratified  at  the  sight  of  the  volumes, 
turned  over  a  few  of  the  plates,  and  had  already  taken  a  pen  to 
write  my  name  in  his  favour  when  my  partner  rather  abruptly 
said  to  me  in  French,  "My  dear  Audubon,  what  induces  you  to 
subscribe  to  this  work?  Your  drawings  are  certainly  far  better, 
and  again  you  must  know  as  much  of  the  habits  of  American 
birds  as  this  gentleman.  "  Whether  Mr.  Wilson  understood 
French  or  not,  or  if  the  suddenness  with  which  I  paused,  disap- 
pointed him,  I  cannot  tell ;  but  I  clearly  perceived  that  he  was 
not  pleased.  Vanity  and  the  encomiums  of  my  friend  prevented 
me  from  subscribing.  Mr.  Wilson  asked  me  if  I  had  many  draw- 
ings of  birds.  I  rose,  took  down  a  large  portfolio,  laid  it  on  the 
table,  and  shewed  him,  as  I  would  show  you,  kind  reader,  or  any 
other  person  fond  of  such  subjects,  the  whole  of  the  contents, 
with  the  same  patience  with  which  he  had  shewn  me  his  own  en- 
gravings. 

His  surprise  appeared  great,  as  he  told  me  he  never 
had  the  most  distant  idea  that  any  other  individual  than  him- 
self had  been  engaged  in  forming  such  a  collection.  He  asked 
me  if  it  was  my  intention  to  publish,  and  when  I  answered  in 
the  negative,  his  surprise  seemed  to  increase.  And,  truly,  such 
was  not  my  intention;  for,  until  long  after,  when  I  met  the 
Prince  of  Musignano  in  Philadelphia,  I  had  not  the  least  idea 
of  presenting  the  fruits  of  my  labours  to  the  world.  Mr.  Wil- 
son now  examined  my  drawings  with  care,  asked  if  I  should 
have  any  objections  to  lending  him  a  few  during  his  stay,  to 
which  I  replied  that  I  had  none :  he  then  bade  me  good  morn- 
ing, not,  however,  until  I  had  made  an  arrangement  to  explore 


222       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  woods  in  the  vicinity  along  with  him,  and  had  promised  to 
procure  for  him  some  birds,  of  which  I  had  drawings  in  my 
collection,  but  which  he  had  never  seen. 

It  happened  that  he  lodged  in  the  same  house  with  us, 
but  his  retired  habits,  I  thought,  exhibited  either  a  strong 
feeling  of  discontent,  or  a  decided  melancholy.  The  Scotch 
airs  which  he  played  sweetly  on  his  flute  made  me  melan- 
choly too,  and  I  felt  for  him.  I  presented  him  to  my 
wife  and  friends,  and  seeing  that  he  was  all  enthusiasm, 
exerted  myself  as  much  as  was  in  my  power,  to  procure 
for  him  the  specimens  which  he  wanted.  We  hunted  to- 
gether, and  obtained  birds  which  he  had  never  before  seen; 
but,  reader,  I  did  not  subscribe  to  his  work,  for,  even  at  that 
time,  my  collection  was  greater  than  his.  Thinking  that  per- 
haps he  might  be  pleased  to  publish  the  results  of  my  researches, 
I  offered  them  to  him,  merely  on  condition  that  what  I  had 
drawn,  or  might  afterwards  draw  and  send  to  him,  should  be 
mentioned  in  his  work,  as  coming  from  my  pencil.  I  at  the  same 
time  offered  to  open  a  correspondence  with  him,  which  I  thought 
might  prove  beneficial  to  us  both.  He  made  no  reply  to  either 
proposal,  arid  before  many  days  had  elapsed  left  Louisville,  on 
his  way  to  New  Orleans,  little  knowing  how  much  his  talents 
were  appreciated  in  our  little  town,  at  least  by  myself  and  my 
friends. 

Some  time  elapsed,  during  which  I  never  heard  of  him,  or  of 
his  work.  At  length,  having  occasion  to  go  to  Philadelphia, 
I,  immediately  after  my  arrival  there,  inquired  for  him  and 
paid  him  a  visit.  He  was  then  drawing  a  White-headed  Eagle. 
He  received  me  with  civility,  and  took  me  to  the  Exhibition 
Rooms  of  Rembrandt  Peale,  the  artist,  who  had  then  portrayed 
Napoleon  crossing  the  Alps.  Mr.  Wilson  spoke  not  of  birds 
or  drawings.  Feeling,  as  I  was  forced  to  do,  that  my  com- 
pany was  not  agreeable,  I  parted  from  him;  and  after  that 
I  never  saw  him  again.  But  judge  of  my  astonishment  some 
time  after,  when  on  reading  the  thirty-ninth  page  of  the  ninth 
volume  of  American  Ornithology,  I  found  in  it  the  following 
paragraph : — 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  223 

"March  23,  1810.— I  bade  adieu  to  LouisviUc,  to  which 
place  I  had  four  letters  of  recommendation,  and  was  taught 
to  expect  much  of  everything  there ;  but  neither  received  one  act 
of  civility  from  those  to  whom  I  was  recommended,  one  sub- 
scriber, nor  one  new  bird;  though  I  delivered  my  letters,  ran- 
sacked the  woods  repeatedly,  and  visited  all  the  characters  likely 
to  subscribe.  Science  or  literature  has  not  one  friend  in  this 
place." 

What  actually  happened  at  this  meeting  of  the  two 
naturalists  will  never  be  certainly  known,  beyond  what 
can  be  gathered  from  their  rather  widely  divergent  ac- 
counts. It  should  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  para- 
graph which  Audubon  quoted  was  extracted  from  Wil- 
son's private  diary;  it  was  no  doubt  written  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment,  possibly  to  humor  his  own  mood,  and 
certainly  with  no  thought  of  its  later  publication.  It 
was  inserted  by  George  Ord  in  the  biographical  sketch 
of  his  friend  appended  to  the  ninth  volume  of  the  Amer- 
ican Ornithology,  which  appeared  in  1814,  the  year  after 
Wilson's  death.  Audubon  was  not  concerned,  either 
directly  or  by  implication,  except  in  the  last  sentence, 
for  it  is  evident  that  he  was  not  one  of  those  to  whom 
Wilson  had  carried  letters  of  introduction.  Thus  the 
matter  stood  until  1828,  when  Audubon's  Birds  of 
America  wrere  being  engraved  in  England.  In  all  prob- 
ability the  incident  would  never  have  been  noticed  by 
Audubon,  had  not  Ord  seen  fit  to  revive  it  when  his  life 
of  Wilson14  was  issued  as  a  separate  volume  in  that 
year.  In  this  edition  of  the  biography  Ord  inserted 
fuller  extracts  from  Wilson's  journal,  with  the  evident 

" Sketch  of  the  Life  of  Alexander  Wilson,  Author  of  the  American 
Ornithology,  by  George  Ord,  F.  L.  S.  &c.  pp.  i-cxcix,  Philadelphia,  1828; 
taken  from  vol.  i  of  an  octavo  edition  of  Wilson,  edited  by  Ord,  and  issued 
by  Harrison  Hall,  in  three  volumes,  at  Philadelphia  in  1828-29,  with  folio 
atlas  of  plates  reproduced  from  the  original  work;  see  Note  10,  supra. 


224       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

purpose  of  placing  the  rival  of  his  friend  in  an  unenvia- 
ble light. 

Wilson's  diary,  which  apparently  was  never  seen  by 
any  of  Audubon's  friends,  is  now  known  to  us  only 
through  such  extracts  as  Ord  and  Waterton,  his  bitter 
enemies,  have  seen  fit  to  make  public;  the  original  has 
probably  been  destroyed,  for  it  cannot  be  traced  later 
than  1840,  when  it  was  still  in  the  hands  of  George  Ord.15 
Charles  Waterton  gave  similar  extracts  from  this  famous 
journal  in  one  of  his  philippics  against  Audubon  in  1834, 
when  he  said  that  it  was  the  testimony  of  this  record 
that  defeated  Audubon's  friends  in  their  initial  attempt 
to  bring  him  into  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  at 
Philadelphia.  Wilson's  narrative  of  his  adventures  at 
Louisville  in  1810,  as  given  by  Ord  and  Waterton,  is 
as  follows:16 

March  17.  Take  my  baggage  and  grope  my  way  to  Louisville — 
put  up  at  the  Indian  Queen  tavern,  and  gladly  sit  down  to 
rest  myself. 

March  18.  Rise  quite  refreshed.  Find  a  number  of  land-specu- 
lators here.17 

March  19.  Rambling  round  the  town  with  my  gun.  Examined 

Mr. 's  drawings  in  crayons — very  good.  Saw  two  new 

birds  he  had,  both  Motacillae. 

March  20.  Set  out  this  afternoon  with  the  gun — killed  nothing 
new.  [People  in  taverns  here  devour  their  meals.  Many 

18  See  Orel's  charge  of  plagiarism  against  Audubon  (Bibl.  No.  145) 
in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  vol.  i  (1840). 
So  far  as  could  be  ascertained  in  the  summer  of  1915,  Wilson's  diary  of 
1810  was  not  in  the  possession  of  any  library  or  scientific  society  in 
Philadelphia,  nor  was  it  in  the  large  collection  of  books  which  was 
given  by  Ord  to  the  College  of  Physicians  and  Surgeons  of  that  city  at  the 
time  of  his  death  in  1866. 

18  The  bracketed  lines  are  from  Waterton,  who  once  stated  that  he 
had  examined  the  original. 

"This  sentence  is  quoted  from  Burns'  biographical  sketch  of  Wilson 
(Bibl.,  No.  161),  but  tenses  are  changed  to  correspond  with  other  entries. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS 

shopkeepers  board  in  taverns — also  boatmen,  land-specu- 
laters,  merchants  &c.]  Xo  naturalist  to  keep  me  company. 

March  21.  Went  out  shooting  this  afternoon  with  Mr.  A.  Saw 
a  number  of  Sandhill  Cranes.  Pigeons  numerous. 

March  28. 

March  23.  Packed  up  my  things  which  I  left  in  the  care  of  a 
merchant  here,  to  be  sent  on  to  Lexington ;  and  having 
parted  with  great  regret,  with  my  paroquet,  to  the  gen- 
tleman of  the  tavern,  I  bade  adieu  to  Louisville,  to  which 
place  I  had  four  letters  of  recommendation,  and  was  taught 
to  expect  much  of  even-thing  there,  but  neither  received 
one  act  of  civility  from  those  to  whom  I  was  recommended, 
one  subscriber,  nor  one  new  bird;  though  I  delivered  my 
letters,  ransacked  the  woods  repeatedly,  and  visited  all  the 
characters  likely  to  subscribe.  Science  or  literature  has 
not  one  friend  in  this  place.  [Everyone  is  so  intent  on 
making  money,  that  they  can  talk  of  nothing  else ;  and  they 
absolutely  devour  their  meals,  that  they  may  return  sooner 
to  their  business.  Their  manners  correspond  with  their 
features.] 

In  this  fuller  record  we  learn  that  Wilson  spent  five 
days  in  Louisville ;  he  examined  Audubon's  drawings  on 
Monday,  March  19,  hunted  alone  on  the  20th,  went  out 
shooting  with  Audubon  on  the  21st,  and  finally  left 
Louisville  on  the  morning  of  the  23d;  no  record  was 
admitted  by  Ord  for  Sunday,  the  18th,  or  for  the  22d, 
a  Thursday.  Wilson  noticed  the  drawings  of  two  new 
Motacillae,  or  Warblers,  in  Audubon's  collection,  and 
it  would  have  been  only  natural  that  he  should  have  felt 
a  strong  desire  to  copy  them,  yet  not  a  word  was  said 
about  the  loan  of  drawings  to  which  Audubon  refers; 
Wilson  merely  stated  that  from  those  to  whom  he  was 
recommended  he  had  received  not  "one  act  of  civility,— 
one  subscriber,  nor  one  new  bird."  Audubon  was  evi- 


226       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

dently  regarded  as  one  of  the  "many  shopkeepers"  who 
boarded  "in  taverns,"  and  not  as  a  "naturalist,"  for 
Wilson  said  that  he  had  none  to  keep  him  company,  and 
it  is  rather  significant  that  Audubon's  name  is  not  once 
mentioned  in  his  Ornithology, 

Twenty-nine  years  after  Wilson's  visit  to  Louisville, 
when  Audubon  came  to  publish  the  fifth  and  last  volume 
of  his  Ornithological  Biography,  he  maintained  that 
Wilson  had  copied  his  drawing  of  a  certain  bird,  called 
the  Small-headed  Flycatcher,18  without  any  acknowl- 
edgment. To  quote  Audubon's  words : 

When  Alexander  Wilson  visited  me  at  Louisville,  he  found 
in  my  already  large  collection  of  drawings,  a  figure  of  the 
present  species,  which  being  at  that  time  unknown  to  him 
he  copied  and  afterwards  published  in  his  great  work,  but 
without  acknowledging  the  privilege  that  had  thus  been  granted 
to  him.  I  have  more  than  once  regretted  this,  not  by  any 
means  so  much  on  my  own  account  as  for  the  sake  of  one  to 
whom  we  are  so  deeply  indebted  for  the  elucidation  of  our 
ornithology. 

This  troublesome  bird  was  first  described  by  Wilson 
in  1812,  when  he  rightly  pronounced  it  "very  rare,"  and 
said  that  the  specimen  from  which  his  drawing  was 
made  had  been  shot  in  an  orchard,  presumably  near 
Philadelphia,  on  the  twenty-fourth  day  of  April,  and 
that  several  had  been  obtained  also  in  New  Jersey. 
His  friend  Ord,  who  came  to  his  defense  in  1840,  con- 
firmed this  statement  by  declaring  to  the  American 
Philosophical  Society  of  Philadelphia  that  he  had  been 
with  Wilson  on  the  day  in  question  and  had  examined 

18  Musicapa  minuta,  which  appears  in  Figure  5,  Plate  50,  of  volume  vi 
of  Wilson's  American  Ornithology  (pp.  62-63  of  the  text),  and  in  Figure  2, 
Plate  ccccxxxiv,  of  Audubon's  Birds  of  America  (Ornithological  Biography, 
vol.  v,  pp.  291-3). 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  227 

the  specimen.  Lawson  also  affirmed  that  in  engraving 
the  plate  he  had  worked  directly  from  the  bird  which 
Wilson  had  given  him. 

What  has  become  of  this  mysterious  phantom  that  has 
been  a  wandering  and  disturbing  voice  among  ornitholo- 
gists for  over  a  century?  It  has  given  rise  to  no  end  of 
conflicting  and  sharp  discussions  between  the  partisans 
of  the  two  naturalists  chiefly  concerned,  the  only  thing 
certain  being  that  if  this  supposititious  species  ever  ex- 
isted, it  has  forsaken  its  old  haunts,  if  not  the  earth  itself, 
and  has  never  returned.  No  doubt  it  was  simply  a  case 
of  mistaken  identity,  and  both  Wilson  and  Audubon 
were  wrong,  each  having  had  in  hand  and  mind  an  imma- 
ture representative  of  one  of  our  numerous  Warblers, 
which  are  now  so  much  better  known.19  If  Wilson 
copied  Audubon's  drawing  of  the  bird,  he  must  have 
replaced  it  with  one  of  his  own,  for  the  figures  of  the 
two  naturalists  are  very  unlike.  Certainly  Audubon 
should  not  have  made  so  serious  a  charge  without  offer- 
ing more  substantial  evidence  in  proof;  perhaps  what  he 
had  intended  to  convey  was  that  Wilson  had  obtained 
from  him  his  first  knowledge  of  the  bird,  and  he  was 
nettled  to  find  that  he  had  been  studiously  ignored.20 

19  Nevertheless  so  careful  and  discerning  a  naturalist  as  Thomas  Nut- 
tall  confidently  asserted  that  his  friend,  Mr.  M.  C.  Pickering,  had  "obtained 
a  specimen  several  years  ago  near  Salem  (Massachusetts)";  see  A  Manual 
of  the  Ornithology  of  the  United  States  and  Canada  (Cambridge,  1832). 
Dr.  Elliott  Coues  at  one  time  thought  that  it  might  have  been  the  Pine- 
creeping  Warbler,  and  Professor  Baird  identified  it  as  the  female  or  young 
of  the  Hooded  Warbler. 

90  Compare  Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  iii,  p.  203,  where  in  Audubon's 
article  on  the  Whooping  Crane,  there  is  this  note:  "Louisville,  State  of 
Kentucky,  March,  1810.  I  had  the  gratification  of  taking  Alexander  Wilson 
to  some  ponds  within  a  few  miles  of  town,  and  of  showing  him  many  birds 
of  this  species,  of  which  he  had  not  previously  seen  any  other  than 
stuffed  specimens.  I  told  him  that  the  white  birds  were  the  adults,  and 
that  the  grey  ones  were  the  young.  Wilson,  in  his  article  on  the  Whooping 
Crane,  has  alluded  to  this,  but,  as  on  other  occasions,  he  has  not  informed 
his  readers  whence  his  information  came." 


228       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Among  the  originals  of  Audubon's  Birds  of  America 
in  possession  of  the  Historical  Society  of  New  York, 
there  is  an  early  drawing  of  a  Warbler  which  bears  in 
pencil,  in  the  naturalist's  hand,  the  following  note:  "This 
bird  was  copied  by  Mr.  Willson  at  Louisville."  21  The 
misspelling  of  Wilson's  name,  which  was  common  with 
Audubon  as  late  as  1820,  would  indicate  that  the  note 
was  not  added  after  that  time,  but  if  Wilson  copied  this 
drawing,  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  ever  used  it. 

Ord  made  another  charge  in  which  Audubon  does  not 
appear  to  such  good  advantage;  though  it  refers  to  a 
later  day,  it  is  best  to  consider  it  now.  This  critic 
thought  that  a  complaint  of  misappropriation  came  with 
ill  grace  from  one  who  had  been  guilty  of  it  himself, 
and  maintained  that  Audubon  had  copied  Wilson's  fig- 
ures of  the  female  Red-wing  Blackbird  (The  Birds  of 
America,  Plate  LXVII),  and  had  also  stolen  his  draw- 
ing of  the  Mississippi  Kite  (Plate  CXVII).  Ord  was 
probably  mistaken  in  regard  to  the  blackbird,  but  with- 
out a  doubt  the  lower  bird  in  the  Kite  plate  was  taken 
from  Wilson  (American  Ornithology,  Plate  25) ,  though 
the  copyist  has  reversed  the  outlines,  left  out  one  of  the 
toes,  added  minor  details,  and  misnamed  the  sex,  which 
in  the  Wilson  original  represents  a  male.  Without  a 
doubt  also  the  odium  in  this  case  must  fall  upon  Audu- 
bon, but  we  are  not  at  all  certain  that  he  was  directly 
responsible  for  the  theft.  Audubon's  plate  of  this  spe- 
cies, which  is  finished  in  elaborate  detail,  was  probably 
published  towards  the  close  of  1831,  when  he  was  in 
America.  He  furnished  his  engraver,  we  believe,  with 


21  What  appear  to  be  the  original  legends,  written  on  this  drawing  in 
ink,  are  as  follows:  "Chute  de  1'Ohio.  July  1,  1808.  No.  31.  J.  A.  Que 
j'avais  figur6  [?]  12  pennes  a  la  queue."  Above  were  later  added,  also 
in  ink,  the  names,  "sylvia  Trochilus  delicata;  Sylvia  delicata,  Aud." 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  229 

the  drawing  of  the  upper  bird  only,  which  he  designated 
as  a  male,  and  the  original  still  exists,  with  clearly  writ- 
ten notes  showing  that  it  was  executed  in  Louisiana  in 
1821.22 

Audubon  usually  made  up  his  drawings  for  the  en- 
graver with  great  care,  but  when  pressed  for  time,  Ha- 
vell's  skill  was  such  that  he  often  depended  upon  him  to 
complete  or  change  his  figures,  to  fill  in  backgrounds, 
or  even  to  combine  several  distinct  figures  into  one 
plate,  specific  directions  for  all  such  changes  being  usu- 
ally written  on  the  drawing  itself.23  Inasmuch  as  no 
penciled  directions  whatever  occur  on  this  particular 
drawing,  is  it  possible  that  Havell,  in  piecing  it  out  to 
improve  the  composition,  followed  his  own  initiative, 
not  fully  appreciating  the  stigma  that  is  rightly  attached 
to  such  methods  ?  The  bird  in  the  lower  half  of  the  plate, 
which  was  appropriated  from  Wilson,  is  misrepresented 
as  a  female,  so  that  the  composite,  as  it  stands,  is  a  re- 
markable product,  supposedly  depicting  a  pair  but  in 
reality  showing  two  males.  Although  the  apparent  dif- 
ference in  sex  in  this  bird  was  admittedly  slight,  it  is 
improbable  that  so  gross  an  error  could  have  escaped 
the  naturalist's  eye  had  he  been  directly  concerned  with 
the  result. 

When  Audubon  was  descending  the  Mississippi  in 
December,  1820,  he  saw  the  kites  busily  engaged  "in 
catching  small  lizards  off  the  bark  of  dead  cypress  trees," 
but  "having  at  that  time  no  crayons  or  paper,"  he  "did 

"On  this  drawing,  which  with  Audubon's  other  originals  is  in  the  col- 
lections of  the  Historical  Society  of  New  York,  the  legends  are  as  follows: 
"Mississippi  Kite,  Male,  Falco  mississippiensis;  Drawn  from  nature  by 
John  J.  Audubon,  Louisiana,  parish  of  Feliciana,  James  Perrie's  Esq., 
Plantation.  June  28th,  1821.  Length  14  inches;  Breadth  3  feet,  %  inches; 
Weight  10%  ounces;  Tail  feathers,  12."  It  is  drawn  in  his  usual  style  of 
that  period,  in  pastel,  water  color  and  pencil,  and  has  been  dismounted. 

»  See  Vol.  I,  p.  305. 


230      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

not  draw  one,  and  determined,"  as  he  then  wrote  in  his 
journal,  "never  to  draw  from  a  stuffed  bird."  "I  first 
saw  the  Mississippi  Kite,"  he  added,  when  "ascending 
in  the  steamboat  Paragon,  in  June,  1819."  Wilson, 
on  the  other  hand,  in  his  knowledge  of  this  interesting 
bird  was  far  in  advance  of  his  later  rival,  for  his  first 
observations  were  made  in  1810,  "in  the  Mississippi  ter- 
ritory, a  few  miles  below  Natchez,  on  the  plantation  of 
William  Dunbar,  esquire,  when  the  bird  represented  in 
the  plate  was  obtained,  after  being  slightly  wounded; 
and  the  drawing  made  with  great  care  from  the  living 
bird."  "For  several  miles,  as  I  passed  near  Bayo  Man- 
chak,"  Wilson  continues,  "the  trees  were  swarming  with 
a  kind  of  cicada,  or  locust,  that  made  a  deafening  noise ; 
and  here  I  observed  numbers  of  the  Hawk  now  before 
us  sweeping  about  among  the  trees  like  Swallows,  evi- 
dently in  pursuit  of  these  locusts;  so  that  insects,  it 
would  appear,  are  the  principal  food  of  this  species."5 
Wilson  never  succeeded  in  procuring  the  female  of  this 
graceful  hawk,  and  his  editor,  George  Ord,  evidently 
continued  the  quest,  for  we  find  his  correspondent,  John 
Abbot,  writing  him  from  "Scriven  County  Georgia  Mar. 
1814":  "Are  you  acquainted  with  the  female  yet  of 
the  Louisiana  Kite?"25 

We  have  entered  into  the  detailed  history  of  this  plate 
because  of  the  unfavorable  comment  which  it  has  pro- 
voked, but  it  is  easier  to  be  critical  than  to  be  either  just 
or  correct,  and  without  more  definite  knowledge  than 
we  possess,  it  would  be  unfair  to  censure  Audubon  too 
much  or  to  shift  the  blame  too  completely  upon  the 
shoulders  of  another. 


94  American  Ornithology,  vol.  iii,  p.  80. 

26  See  Witner  Stone,   "Some  Letters  of  Alexander  Wilson  and  John 
Abbot,"  The  Auk,  vol.  xxiii,  1906. 


A  MEETING  OF  RIVALS  231 

To  return  again  to  the  story  of  Wilson's  diary,  it 
is  evident  that  Wilson  would  never  have  published  his 
sentiments  in  the  form  in  which  they  later  appeared. 
They  were  perfectly  characterized  by  a  just  critic  of  an 
early  day,26  who  said  that  Wilson's  words  were  without 
doubt  written  in  a  moment  of  keen  depression  and  disap- 
pointment and  were  an  exact  description  of  his  feelings, 
though,  as  we  should  also  add,  not  of  the  facts.  "A 
man  who  has  given  his  heart  to  the  accomplishment  of 
an  object,  believing  that  he  has  no  rival,  must  be  some- 
what more  than  human,  if  he  be  delighted  to  find  that 
another  is  engaged  in  the  same  purpose,  with  equal 
energy  and  advantages  far  greater  than  his  own."  Bar- 
ring his  usual  inaccuracies,  it  must  be  admitted  that  Au- 
dubon's  account  bears  the  thumbmarks  of  truth.  He 
could  not  have  known  the  bitter  struggles  of  the  proud 
spirit  whose  history  we  have  briefly  told ;  he  saw  only  a 
stranger,  an  ardent  devotee  of  nature,  it  is  true,  but  a 
man  of  unbending  disposition,  who  with  a  little  more 
suavity  of  address  could  probably  have  won  his  friend- 
ship, if  not  his  subscription.  Of  the  literary  quality  of 
Wilson's  work,  now  so  well  appreciated,  he  could  have 
known  nothing  at  all;  after  turning  its  pages  in  his 
Louisville  store  for  the  first  time  in  1810,  he  probably 
did  not  see  it  again  for  over  ten  years. 

That  Wilson  was  jealous  of  Audubon  as  a  future 
rival  is  probable,  but  the  real  "rivalry"  between  these  two 
pioneers  was  of  later  growth.  It  was  fostered  in  this 
country  chiefly  by  George  Ord  and  some  of  his  friends, 
together  with  others  who  were  interested  in  the  sale  of 
Wilson's  work.  Ord,  who  seems  to  have  felt  that  the 
mantle  of  this  naturalist  had  fallen  on  his  own  shoul- 

28  In  1840,  by  W.  B.  O.  Peabody,  naturalist;  author  of  a  Life  of  Wilson; 
see  Bibliography,  No.  105. 


232       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ders,  strove  continually,  and  after  1826  with  the  aid  of 
Charles  Waterton  in  England,  to  hamper  Audubon's 
progress,  to  discredit  him  as  a  man  of  integrity,  and 
to  break  down  his  growing  reputation  as  a  naturalist. 
Though  Ord  was  justified  to  some  extent  in  his  attacks 
upon  Audubon  which  were  made  over  Wilson's  shoul- 
ders long  after  that  estimable  man  was  laid  in  the  grave, 
the  matter  was  carried  too  far.  Neither  of  the  rivals 
was  wholly  without  fault,  and  a  century  is  far  too  long 
to  continue  any  quarrel,  especially  when  one  of  those 
whose  reputation  was  concerned  was  never  a  party  to 
it. 

Audubon,  as  we  have  seen,  frankly  attributed  to  per- 
sonal vanity  his  failure  to  patronize  Wilson's  work, 
and  added  that  "even  at  that  time  my  collections  were 
greater  than  his."  But  it  should  be  noticed  that  money 
was  far  from  plentiful  with  him  at  that  moment.  He 
was,  in  short,  at  the  point  of  failure  in  the  Louisville 
enterprise,  and  with  Rozier  was  obliged  to  move  down 
the  river  not  long  after  the  date  of  Wilson's  visit.  Au- 
dubon has  been  represented  as  at  this  time  a  well-to-do 
man  of  leisure,  of  fastidious  tastes.  Nothing  could  have 
been  wider  of  the  mark.  He  was  still  more  of  a  sports- 
man than  a  naturalist,  and  when  not  occupied  with 
drawing,  he  spent  most  of  his  time  in  the  forest,  to  the 
neglect  of  his  trade.  We  may  be  sure  that  he  was 
quite  as  used  to  roughing  it  as  any  man  on  the  frontier. 


CHAPTER  XV 

EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  ON  THE  FRONTIER 

The  Ohio  a  hundred  years  ago — Hardships  of  the  pioneer  trader — Audu- 
bon's  long  journeys  by  overland  trail  or  river  to  buy  goods — The 
"ark"  and  keelboat — Chief  pleasures  of  the  naturalist  at  Louisville — 
The  partners  move  their  goods  by  flatboat  to  Henderson,  Kentucky, 
and  then  to  Ste.  Genevieve,  (Missouri) — Held  up  by  the  ice — Adventures 
with  the  Indians — Mississippi  in  flood — Camp  at  the  Great  Bend — 
Abundance  of  game — Breaking  up  of  the  ice — Settle  at  Ste.  Genevieve — 
The  partnership  dissolved — Audubon's  return  to  Henderson — Rozier's 
successful  career — His  old  store  at  Ste.  Genevieve. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  banks 
of  the  Ohio  River  were  but  thinly  settled,  and  over  vast 
areas  the  virgin  forest  still  reigned  in  undisturbed  vigor 
and  beauty.  Yet  traders  were  eagerly  pushing  west- 
ward in  ever  growing  numbers,  and  by  1810  Audubon 
and  Rozier  found  that  competition  at  Louisville  was 
already  keen.  This  city,  wrote  Alexander  Wilson  in 
describing  his  experiences  in  the  spring  of  that  year, 
was  as  large  as  Frankfort,  and  possessed  a  number  of 
good  brick  buildings  and  valuable  shops;  it  would  have 
been  salubrious,  he  thought,  "but  for  the  numerous 
swamps  and  ponds  that  intersect  the  woods  in  its  neigh- 
borhood," and  the  indifference  of  the  people,  whom  he 
found  too  intent  upon  making  money  to  give  any  heed 
to  the  drainage  and  sanitation  of  their  town. 

The  prosperity  of  the  partners,  as  already  intimated, 
was  shortlived.  Audubon  was  doubtless  right  in  ad- 
mitting that  his  business  abandoned  him  because  he 
could  not  bear  to  give  it  the  necessary  attention.  The 

233 


234       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

conditions  of  life  for  the  merchant-trader  at  that  early 
day  were  at  best  far  from  easy,  and  an  honest  success, 
as  then  understood,  required  not  only  plenty  of  rough 
work  but  careful  planning  as  well.  His  goods,  pur- 
chased in  the  East,  were  laboriously  transported  across 
the  State  of  Pennsylvania,  and  if  they  came  from  Phil- 
adelphia they  must  needs  traverse  the  rough  wagon 
roads  that  led  through  Bedford  to  Pittsburgh.  There 
was  an  overland  trail  from  Pittsburgh  to  Kentucky, 
but  merchants  with  heavy  loads  would  naturally  take 
the  easier  river  route.  In  going  east  to  renew  his  stock 
in  trade,  it  was  a  common  practice  to  travel  on  horseback 
from  as  far  west  as  St.  Louis,  but  on  returning  the 
merchant  would  often  sell  his  mount  at  Baltimore,  Phil- 
adelphia or  Pittsburgh,  where  a  boat  could  be  taken 
for  the  remainder  of  the  journey. 

The  "ark"  or  flatboat  was  considered  most  convenient 
for  the  transportation  of  either  passengers  or  merchan- 
dise down  the  Ohio,  for  any  well-to-do  traveler,  while 
floating  leisurely  with  the  current,  could  make  himself 
comfortable  by  fitting  up  snug  sleeping  quarters  and 
a  kitchen  on  deck,  and  could  go  ashore  at  will,  with  the 
certainty  of  satisfying  his  appetite  for  wild  turkey,  veni- 
son and  other  game  in  the  season.  Wilson,  who  de- 
scended the  river  in  April,  1810,  boarded  and  passed 
many  of  these  "arks,"  which  he  described  as  built  in 
the  form  of  a  parallelogram,  from  twelve  to  fourteen 
feet  wide  and  from  forty  to  seventy  feet  long,  with  a 
canopy  to  protect  them  from  the  weather;  they  were 
casually  helped  along  by  means  of  two  oars  in  the  bow, 
and  steered  by  another  and  more  powerful  one  in  the 
stern.  "Several  of  these  floating  caravans,"  said  Wil- 
son, "were  loaded  with  store  goods  for  the  supply  of 
the  settlements  through  which  they  passed,  having  a 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  235 

counter  erected,  shawls,  muslins,"  and  the  like,  "dis- 
played, and  everything  ready  for  transacting  business. 
On  approaching  a  settlement  they  blew  a  tin  trumpet, 
which  announced  to  the  inhabitants  their  arrival."  These 
"arks,"  he  added,  descended  from  all  parts  of  the  Ohio 
and  its  tributary  streams,  but  in  greatest  numbers  in 
the  spring  months.  Although  they  cost  originally  about 
$1.50  per  foot  of  length,  when  arrived  at  their  destina- 
tion they  would  seldom  bring  more  than  one-sixth  of 
that  amount.  From  forty  to  fifty  days  were  commonly 
required  to  cover  the  entire  distance  of  two  thousand 
miles  from  Pittsburgh  to  New  Orleans. 

Another  means  of  conveyance  on  the  river,  frequently 
used  by  Audubon,  was  the  keel  boat  or  barge,  which, 
in  some  cases,  was  also  roofed  and  would  hold  about 
two  hundred  barrels  of  flour.1  When  assisted  by  oars  in 
the  bow,  it  could  reduce,  the  time  of  a  journey  to  New 
Orleans  by  ten  or  fifteen  days.  These  barges  were 
pushed  up  stream  with  the  aid  of  setting  poles  at  an 
average  rate  of  about  twenty  miles  a  day,  or,  if  loaded, 
they  were  laboriously  "cordelled,"  or  drawn  by  the  hands 
of  men  who  trudged  along  the  banks  pulling  at  the  cor- 
delle. 

The  chief  pleasures  which  Audubon's  business  ven- 
tures in  the  West  seem  to  have  afforded  him  were  his 
leisurely  journey  by  river  and  long  horseback  rides  to 
Philadelphia  to  buy  goods,  when  he  could  roam  through 
his  "beautiful  and  darling  forests  of  Kentucky,  Ohio, 
and  Pennsylvania,"  which  gave  him  grand  opportunities 
to  make  observations  upon  birds  and  animal  life  of 
every  sort.  He  would  seldom  hesitate  to  swerve  from 
his  course  to  study  his  favorites,  and  has  related  how 
on  one  occasion,  when  driving  before  him  several  horses 

1  Vincent  Nolle,  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemispheres  (Bibl.  No.  176). 


236       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

laden  with  merchandise  and  dollars,  he  quite  lost  sight  of 
the  pack  saddles  and  the  cash  they  bore,  in  watching  the 
motions  of  a  warhler.  But  few  coaches,  said  Audubon, 
were  available  in  those  days,  and  the  post  roads  were 
often  unfit  for  lighter  carriages.  To  cover  the  distance 
from  Louisville  to  Philadelphia  on  horseback  required 
about  twenty  days,  and  only  a  capable  animal  and  rider 
could  make  forty  miles  a  day;  when  steamer  traffic  on 
the  Ohio2  was  well  in  hand  this  time  was  reduced  to  six 
or  seven  days,  in  performing  a  journey  which  the  mod- 
ern railroad  has  shortened  to  not  far  from  as  many  hours. 
Discouraged  by  the  gloomy  prospects  which  their 
business  at  Louisville  presented,  Audubon  and  Rozier 
determined  in  the  spring  of  1810  to  move  125  miles 
down  the  river  to  Henderson.3  Loading  the  residue  of 
their  stock  on  a  flatboat,  they  resolutely  set  out  for  the 
new  field,  but  great  was  their  surprise  to  find,  in  place 
of  the  thriving  settlement  which  their  imaginations  had 
pictured,  only  a  cluster  of  log  houses  on  the  river  bank, 
with  a  population  of  less  than  200  people  and  a  demand 
for  little  else  than  whisky,  gunpowder  and  coarse  woolen 
goods.  When  the  partners  arrived,  the  little  town  was 
eighteen  years  old,  as  the  first  log  cabins  were  built 
there  in  1792,  but  the  whole  country  above  and  below 

3  The  first  steamboat  on  the  Ohio  was  the  Orleans,  a  vessel  of  200- 
400  tons,  built  at  Pittsburgh  in  the  summer  and  fall  of  1811,  by  Robert 
Fulton  and  Robert  M.  Livingston;  her  first  voyage,  when  she  touched  at 
Henderson,  was  signalized,  as  it  seemed  to  many,  by  the  great  earthquakes 
of  that  year.  The  first  Kentucky  steamer  was  built  at  Henderson  in  1817, 
the  same  year  that  a  small  vessel  was  constructed  by  Samuel  Bowen 
and  J.  J.  Audubon  at  the  same  place  (see  Chapter  XVI).  Compare 
Edmund  L.  Starling,  History  of  Henderson  County,  Kentucky  (Bibl.  No. 
186). 

8  Known  first  as  Redbank  or  Redbanks,  to  distinguish  it  from  Yellow- 
bank,  or  Owensboro,  on  a  similar  bend  farther  upstream;  called  also 
Hendersonville,  but  this  term  had  no  official  standing.  The  population  of 
Henderson  in  1810  is  given  as  159,  and  that  of  the  entire  county,  then 
larger  than  at  present,  as  5,000.  See  Starling,  op,  cit. 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  237 

them  was,  and  for  a  considerable  time  remained,  one 
vast  canebrake.  All  the  commodities  known  to  the  pio- 
neer store  were  scarce,  but  the  people  of  Henderson 
were  friendly,  and  the  new  settlers  had  been  provident  in 
bringing  with  them  a  goodly  supply  of  flour  and  "bacon 
hams."  Moreover,  the  Ohio,  which  was  half  a  mile  wide 
at  that  point,  was  well  stocked  with  fish,  and  the  woods 
and  canebrakes  were  alive  with  birds,  not  to  speak  of 
larger  and  more  important  game.  Not  many  years  be- 
fore, wild  turkeys  had  been  so  plentiful  that  they  were 
not  sold  but  were  given  away,  while  a  large  buck  deer 
could  be  bought  in  the  season  for  fifty  cents. 

During  their  stay  at  Henderson,  Rozier  was  in  his 
habitual  place  behind  the  counter  and  attended  to  what 
little  business  was  done,  while  Audubon  with  a  Ken- 
tucky lad  named  John  Pope,  who  was  nominally  a 
clerk,  roamed  the  country  in  eager  pursuit  of  rare  birds, 
and  with  rod  and  gun  bountifully  supplied  the  table. 
Audubon's  first  abode  in  the  town  was,  as  he  said,  "a 
log-cabin,  not  a  log-house"  in  which  the  richest  piece  of 
furniture  was  their  child's  cradle.  He  soon  began  to 
cultivate  a  garden,  but  his  experience  in  horticulture 
must  have  been  limited,  for  he  naively  remarks  that 
the  rankness  of  the  soil  kept  the  seeds  they  planted 
"far  beneath  the  tall  weeds  which  sprang  up  the  first 
year." 

Financial  distress  and  hard  times  were  already  being 
felt  in  the  Blue  Grass  State,  and  these  conditions  were 
not  destined  soon  to  improve.  After  experimenting  for 
six  months,  or  more,  at  Henderson,  our  two  "rolling 
stones"  determined  to  push  still  farther  west  and  try 
their  luck  at  a  more  promising  point.  They  had  hoped 
to  reach  St.  Louis  but  finally  went  instead  to  Ste.  Gen- 
evieve,  then  a  small  French  settlement  in  Upper  Louis- 


238       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

iana,  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  a  hundred 
miles  north  of  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio. 

This  new  venture  promised  to  be  both  hazardous  and 
uncertain,  and  as  Mrs.  Audubon  and  Rozier  were  not 
on  the  friendliest  terms,  Audubon  decided  to  leave  his 
family  at  Henderson,  where  a  home  for  his  wife  and 
infant  son  could  always  be  had  under  the  hospitable  roof 
of  Dr.  Adam  Rankin,  who  became  one  of  the  naturalist's 
staunchest  friends.  If  their  stock  in  trade  at  this  time 
actually  consisted  of  "three  hundred  barrels  of  whisky, 
sundry  dry-goods  and  powder,"  as  Audubon  affirmed, 
the  keel  boat  which  they  then  engaged  was  certainly 
calculated  to  bear  a  goodly  load.4  At  all  events  the 
partners,  with  young  Pope,  their  clerk,  set  out  bravely, 
in  a  snow  storm,  in  December,  1810.  They  floated  with 
the  current  at  a  rate  of  about  five  miles  an  hour,  while 
they  helped  their  craft  along  by  means  of  four  oars  in 
her  bow  and  steered  it  with  the  aid  of  a  slender  tree 
trunk,  "shaped  at  its  outer  extremity  like  the  fin  of  a 
dolphin." 

This  journey  of  upwards  of  165  miles  lasted  altogeth- 
er more  than  nine  weeks.  It  proved  adventurous  enough, 
but  it  was  of  no  use  to  Audubon  except  in  furnishing 
him  with  drawings  of  new  birds  and  the  raw  materials 
for  many  "Episodes."  The  journal  of  his  experiences 
on  the  great  rivers  during  that  eventful  winter  of  1810 
and  1811  is  interesting  for  the  sidelights  which  it  throws 
both  upon  his  character  and  upon  the  state  of  the  coun- 
try at  an  elder  day.  Held  up  by  the  ice  for  several 
weeks  at  Cash  Creek,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Ohio,  to 
his  own  delight  but  to  Rozier's  sorrow,  Audubon 
tramped  the  country  and  hunted  wild  swans  and  larger 
game  with  the  friendly  Shawnee  Indians.  "When  one 

4  See  Vol.  I,  p.  235. 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  239 

day's  sport  was  over,"  he  said,  "we  counted  more  than 
fifty  of  these  beautiful  birds  whose  skins  were  intended 
for  the  ladies  of  Europe.  There  were  plenty  of  geese 
and  ducks,  but  no  one  condescended  to  give  them  a  shot." 
This  was  Audubon  in  1810,  when  such  "sport"  was  re- 
garded as  legitimate  enough,  and  the  feather-hunting 
of  such  Indians  was  not  considered  the  nefarious  trade 
that  it  proved  to  be.  If  we  shift  the  scene  to  twenty 
years  later,  when  William  MacGillivray  needed  thou- 
sands of  specimens  of  American  birds  for  his  studies 
upon  their  anatomy  and  variability,  we  find  Audubon 
supplying  him  liberally,  but  he  could  not  then  bear  to  see 
them  killed  wantonly  or  for  mere  sport;  more  than 
once,  out  of  compassion  for  individual  birds  that  he 
chanced  to  be  studying,  whether  in  Florida  or  in  Labra- 
dor, he  would  not  permit  them  to  be  shot  even  when 
needed  for  his  collections. 

At  the  Shawnee  Indian  camp,  to  relate  a  character- 
istic anecdote,  Audubon  noticed  that  a  squaw  who  "had 
been  delivered  of  beautiful  twins  during  the  night"  was 
busied  on  the  next  day  at  her  usual  task  of  tanning 
deer  skins.  "She  cut  two  vines,"  his  record  reads,  "at 
the  roots  of  opposite  trees  and  made  a  cradle  of  the  bark, 
in  which  the  new  born  ones  were  wafted  to  and  fro  with 
a  push  of  her  hand,  while  from  time  to  time  she  gave 
them  the  breast,  and  was  apparently  as  unconcerned  as 
if  the  event  had  not  taken  place." 

When  at  last  our  adventurers  gained  the  Mississippi, 
the  mighty  volume  of  which  was  running  three  miles  an 
hour,  the  patron  ordered  all  hands  ashore  to  pull  at  the 
bow  rope.  This  characteristic  remark  of  the  naturalist 
is  delightful,  as  showing  the  "single  eye"  which  it  has 
been  declared  of  old  shall  be  "full  of  light":  "we  made," 
said  Audubon,  "seven  miles  a  day  up  the  famous  river; 


240       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

but  while  I  was  tugging  with  my  back  at  the  cordella,  I 
kept  my  eyes  fixed  on  the  forests  or  the  ground,  looking 
for  birds  or  curious  shells." 

Warping  against  the  current  was  both  difficult  and 
dangerous,  and  though  they  rose  two  hours  before  the 
sun,  they  could  make  but  one  mile  an  hour  or  ten  miles 
in  the  day.  At  night  they  would  go  ashore,  light  a 
good  fire  and  cook  their  supper;  then,  after  posting  a 
sentinel  to  guard  against  unfriendly  surprises,  they 
would  roll  in  their  buffalo  skins  and  sleep  without  fur- 
ther concern.  Notwithstanding  all  their  efforts,  when 
they  reached  the  Great  Bend  at  Tawapatee  Bottom, 
they  were  obliged  to  unship  their  cargo,  protect  their 
boat  as  best  they  could  from  being  crushed  in  the  grow- 
ing pack,  and  await  the  final  breaking  up  of  the  ice.  "The 
sorrows  of  Rozier,"  at  this  dismal  announcement,  said 
Audubon,  "were  too  great  to  be  described;  wrapped  in 
a  blanket,  like  a  squirrel  in  winter  quarters  with  his 
tail  about  his  nose,  he  slept  and  dreamed  his  time  away, 
being  seldom  seen  except  at  meals."  There  was  not  a 
white  man's  cabin  within  twenty  miles,  but  a  new  field 
opened  to  the  naturalist,  who  tramped  through  the  deep 
forests,  and  soon  became  acquainted  with  all  the  Indian 
trails  and  lakes  in  the  neighborhood. 

The  six  weeks  spent  at  this  camp  passed  pleasantly 
for  Audubon,  who  devoted  much  of  the  time  in  studying 
the  Osage  Indians,  whom  he  thought  superior  to  the 
Shawnees,  as  well  as  in  watching  for  wolves,  bears,  deer, 
cougars,  racoons  and  wild  turkeys,  some  of  which  were 
attracted  by  the  bones  and  scraps  of  food  thrown  out  for 
them:  "I  drew,"  said  he,  "more  or  less,  by  the  side  of  our 
great  camp-fire,  every  day."  While  detained  at  this 
point,  they  used  for  bread  the  breasts  of  turkeys,  but- 
tered with  bear's  grease,  and  opossum  and  bear's  meat, 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  241 

until  their  stomachs  revolted  and  they  longed  for  a  little 
Indian  meal,  which  was  procured  only  with  the  greatest 
difficulty. 

When  at  last  the  ice  broke  up,  splitting  with  reports 
like  the  thunder  of  heavy  artillery,  their  prospects  were 
dismal  indeed,  for  their  boat  was  immediately  jammed 
by  the  rushing  ice,  and  they  were  powerless  to  move 
her.  "While  we  were  gazing  on  the  scene,"  to  continue 
Audubon's  record,  "a  tremendous  crash  was  heard, 
which  seemed  to  have  taken  place  about  a  mile  below, 
when  suddenly  the  great  dam  gave  way.  The  current 
of  the  Mississippi  had  forced  its  way  against  that  of 
the  Ohio,  and  in  less  than  four  hours  we  witnessed  the 
complete  breaking  up  of  the  ice."  Having  reloaded 
their  goods,  they  were  ready  to  start  at  a  favorable  mo- 
ment, and  taking  leave  of  the  friendly  Indians,  "as  when 
brothers  part,"  they  pushed  on  through  the  floating  ice, 
past  Cape  Girardeau,  to  Sainte  Genevieve,  a  town  which 
Audubon  characterized  as  "not  so  large  as  dirty,"  de- 
claring that  the  time  spent  there  did  not  yield  him  half 
the  pleasure  he  had  felt  at  Tawapatee  Bottom.  It  was 
near  a  granite  tower  which  rose  from  a  dangerous  rock 
in  the  river  below  Ste.  Genevieve  that  Audubon  caught 
sight  of  what  he  afterwards  described  as  "Washington's 
Eagle,"  a  bird  now  believed  to  have  been  the  true  "bird 
of  freedom,"  the  "Bald-"  or  White-headed  Eagle,  but 
in  an  immature  state. 

Though  their  whisky  was  welcomed  at  Ste.  Gene- 
vieve and  what  had  cost  the  traders  twenty-five  cents, 
brought  them  two  dollars,  a  gallon,  Audubon  heartily 
disliked  the  place  and  its  people.  Rozier,  on  the  con- 
trary, who  had  found  plenty  of  Frenchmen  with  whom 
he  could  freely  converse,  was  resolved  to  stay.  Audubon 
accordingly  proposed  to  sell  out  his  share  in  the  business, 


242       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

and  the  partnership  was  dissolved  on  April  6,  1811, 
Rozier  paying  part  of  the  price  in  cash  and  the  re- 
mainder in  notes.  In  referring  to  the  incident  in  his 
journal  of  1820,  Audubon  wrote:  "I  parted  with  Mr. 
Rozier,  and  walked  to  Henderson  in  four  days — 165 


SIGNATURE    TO   THE    RELEASE    GIVEN   BY   AUDUBON    TO   FERDINAND   ROZIER   ON    THE 
DISSOLUTION  OF  THEIR  PARTNERSHIP  AT  STE.  GENEVIEVE,  APRIL  6,  1811. 

From  the  Tom  J.  Rozier  MSS. 

miles";  but  this  does  not  agree  with  a  later  account,  in 
which  he  spoke  of  having  "purchased  a  beauty  of  a 
horse,"  and,  happy  in  the  prospect  of  again  seeing  his 
family,  set  out  for  Dr.  Rankin's  house  in  Kentucky. 
In  the  earlier  record  he  also  wrote  that  he  once  had  a 
friend  in  trade,  referring  to  Ferdinand  Rozier,  "with 
whom  he  did  not  agree,  and  so  they  parted  forever"; 
but  Audubon  visited  Ste.  Genevieve  in  the  autumn  of 
1811  and  in  the  winter  of  1812,  probably  for  the  pur- 
pose of  collecting  his  money  and  settling  his  affairs, 
while  the  following  letters  of  this  period  show  that 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  243 

friendly  relations  with  his  old  partner  were  not  seriously 
impaired : 5 

John  James  Audubon  to  Ferdinand  Rozier 

LOUISVILLE.  %d  November  1811. 
MR.  F.  ROZIER 

St.  Genevieve. 
MY  DEAR  ROZIER  ; 

I  reached  here  on  the  31st  of  last  month  a  little  fatigued, 
as  you  can  well  imagine.  Yesterday  I  wrote  to  T.  W.  Bake- 
well  at  New  Orleans,  and  doubt  not  he  is  sending  you  regularly 
the  prices  current  of  the  market  there.  I  have  found  here  a 
letter  addressed  to  my  brother-in-law  from  Benj.  Bakewell,  who 
complains  of  us,  and  says  that  we  ought  to  settle  with  him  in 
one  way  or  another ;  write  to  him  at  Pittsburgh ;  I  will  be  with 
him,  possibly  at  the  same  time,  and  will  speak  with  him ;  by  the 
bill  which  he  inclosed  you  will  see  that  we  are  his  debtor  for 
55$.  I  am  leaving  here  in  2  or  3  days.  I  wish  you  health  and 
prosperity,  and  with  the  respects  of  my  wife,  I  am  always  your 
friend  & 

Servant 

J.  AUDUBON. 

[Addressed]     MR.  FD.  ROZIER 
Merchant 

St  Genevieve 
u.L. 

John  James  Audubon  to  Ferdinand  Rozier 

SHIPPINOPORT.  10th  Augst.  1812 
MY  DEAR  ROZIER  ; — 

As  it  is  quite  likely  that  the  present  opportunity  is  safe, 
I  take  pleasure  in  writing  you  a  few  words. 

Your  letter  sent  to  Philadelphia  was  duly  received,  and  an- 

5  See  translations  from  copies  of  the  originals,  in  French,  in  possession 
of  the  Louisiana  Historical  Society,  New  Orleans,  in  Appendix  I,  Document 
No.  21. 


244      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

swered  promptly ;  since  I  have  heard  news  of  you  only  by  the 
most  indirect  means,  I  would  be  happy  if  you  can  give  a  few 
moments  to  your  friends,  if  you  would  count  me  in  their 
number,  and  would  write  me  from  time  to  time;  I  left  Phila- 
delphia last  month  with  my  wife  and  son;  most  of  this  time 
was  spent  in  descending  the  Ohio,  which  is  at  present  very  low ; 
we  had  the  barge  and  crew  of  G[en]l.  Clark,  with  the  com- 
pany of  Mr.  R.  A.  Maupin,  and  of  Mrs.  Gait,  who  had  spent 
several  months  at  New  York  &  at  Phila.  I  shall  probably  de- 
scend [the  river]  to  New  Orleans  this  autumn  with  N.  Ber- 
thoud ;  [all  kinds  of]  merchandise  are  extremely  scarce  and  very 
dear,  everywhere,  but  even  more  is  this  true  of  coarse  woolens, 
which  one  does  not  find  at  all. 

I  have  no  doubt  your  lead  is  selling  very  well,  this  article 
having  increased  considerably  [in  value]  since  the  war.  In  the 
latter  part  of  my  stay  in  the  East  I  received  a  letter  from  my 
father,  and  one  from  your  brother;  all  your  family  were  then 
well,  that  is,  four  months  ago;  your  brother  is  very  anxious 
to  hear  from  you ;  if  peace  should  come  at  a  day  not  far  remote 
(and  may  it  please  God  that  this  be  so),  I  hope  to  get  into 
communication  with  him. 

I  have  written  to  him  and  I  urge  you  to  do  the  same ;  your 
letters  can  be  delivered,  if  sent  to  New  York,  and  from  thence 
on  the  Cartel.6  My  wife  is  well  and  [so  is]  my  son;  may  you 
be  the  same,  and  count  among  the  number  of  your  friends  him 
who  would  esteem  you  always. 

Adieu 

J.  AUDUBON. 

[Addressed]      MRS  F.  ROZIERS 
Merch* 

St  Genevieve 
u.L. 

Friendly  relations  with  his  former  partner  in  trade 
were  occasionally  renewed  by  the  naturalist  in  after  life. 

*Boat  for  the  exchange  of  prisoners  of  war. 


EXPERIMENTS  IN  TRADE  245 

At  one  of  their  last  meetings,  in  1842,  Rozier,  who  had 
then  returned  from  France,  visited  Audubon  at  his  home 
on  the  Hudson,  and  both  were  entertained  in  New  York 
by  their  mutual  friend,  Nicholas  Berthoud. 

Ferdinand  Rozier,  with  whom  we  now  part  company, 
lived  to  enjoy  abundant  prosperity  as  a  trader  and  mer- 
chant at  Ste.  Genevieve.  Born  in  Nantes  on  November 
9,  1777,7  at  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  entered  the  French 
navy,  at  a  time  when  Napoleon  was  contesting  with 
England  the  supremacy  of  the  sea.  He  made  numerous 
voyages,  and  we  hear  of  him  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope, 
the  Island  of  France  or  Mauritius,  at  Cadiz,  Teneriffe, 
and  at  the  Island  of  Bartholomew.  Eventually,  on 
April  8,  1804,  he  embarked  on  the  cutter  Experiment, 
with  Captain  Upton  in  charge,  bound  for  the  United 
States,  where  he  visited  a  number  of  American  ports, 
including  Philadelphia  and  Norfolk.  In  the  following 
year  he  returned  to  France  in  the  frigate  President, 
Captain  Gallic  Lebrosse,  and  entered  the  harbor  of 
Nantes  on  March  1,  1805.8  In  the  spring  of  that  year 
John  James  Audubon,  as  we  have  seen,  had  also  re- 
turned to  that  city,  and  plans  were  eventually  laid  for 
their  commercial  aggrandizement  in  the  New  World 
which  both  had  so  lately  visited.  To  what  extent  Au- 
dubon's  dreams  failed  of  realization  may  be  gathered 
from  the  following  chapters. 

Having  settled  finally  at  Ste.  Genevieve,  Rozier,  at 
thirty-six,  married  Constance  Roy,  a  girl  of  eighteen, 
who  bore  him  ten  children,  four  of  whom,  all  octogena- 
rians, were  living  in  1905.  Ferdinand  Rozier's  thrift 
and  industry  soon  brought  him  substantial  rewards.  In 
his  earlier  days  he  is  said  to  have  made  six  journeys  to 

T  Compare  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  152. 
•See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  148. 


246       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Philadelphia  on  horseback  to  purchase  merchandise,  and 
these  trading  expeditions  were  uniformly  successful. 
His  trade  extended  over  the  whole  of  Upper  Louisiana, 
and  he  lived  to  see  the  great  growth  of  Missouri  as  a 
sovereign  state,  along  with  the  development  of  the  fabu- 
lous mineral  wealth  of  the  district.9 

Rozier's  old  store  at  Ste.  Genevieve,  for  long  a  land- 
mark in  that  community  and  considered  a  pretentious 
building  in  its  day,  was  undoubtedly  built  after  the 
date  of  Audubon's  visit.  The  front  was  devoted  to  the 
service  of  customers  and  a  large  shed  or  stock  room 
was  placed  at  the  rear,  while  the  family  lived  in  the 
main  section,  which  was  entered  by  a  door  not  shown  in 
our  illustration.10  When  this  building  was  demolished 
to  make  way  for  modern  changes,  the  wooden  pins  used 
in  joining  the  frame  were  treasured  by  many  as  souve- 
nirs of  pioneer  times. 

Ferdinand  Rozier,  who  outlived  Audubon  by  thirteen 
years,  died  at  Ste.  Genevieve  on  January  1,  1864,  at  the 
age  of  eighty-seven  years.  If  he  were  one  of  those 
who  thought  that  Audubon  was  wasting  his  time  in  his 
ardent  zeal  for  natural  history,  it  should  not  surprise 
us,  for  their  ideals  were  in  conflict,  and  the  naturalist's 
way  of  working  was  certainly  not  conducive  to  success 
in  trade. 

"For  this  characterization  of  Ferdinand  Rozier  I  am  indebted  mainly 
to  an  account  by  his  son,  Firman  A.  Rozier,  at  one  time  mayor  of 
Ste.  Genevieve  and  member  of  the  State  Legislature;  see  his  History 
of  the  Early  Settlement  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  (Bibl.  No.  202)  (St. 
Louis,  1890). 

10  For  a  photograph  of  the  old  Rozier  store  at  Ste.  Genevieve,  as  well 
as  for  the  likeness  of  Rozier,  made  in  1862,  when  he  was  in  his  eighty- 
fifth  year,  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Ruthven  Deane,  who 
received  them  from  a  son  of  Ferdinand,  Felix  Rozier,  in  November,  1905, 
when  the  latter  had  attained  his  eighty-third  year. 


IN    HIS   ETOIITY-KIKTH    YEAR     (1862) 


JKRDINAND    ROZIER's  OLD   STORE    AT   STE.    GEXEVIKVE,    MISSOURI. 

This  and   the  above  published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.   Huthveu   Drane. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

AUDUBON'S  MILL,  AND  FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS 

Dr.  Rankin's  "Meadow  Brook  Farm"— Birth  of  John  Woodhouse  Audu- 
bon — The  Audubon-Bakewell  partnership — Meeting  with  Nolte — Failure 
of  the  commission  business — Visit  to  Rozier — Storekeeping  at  Hender- 
son— Purchases  of  land — Habits  of  frontier  tradesmen — Steamboats  on 
the  Ohio — Popular  pastimes — Audubon-Bakewell-Pears  partnership— 
Their  famous  steam  mill — Mechanical  and  financial  troubles — Business 
reorganization — Bankruptcy  general — Failure  of  the  mill — Personal  en- 
counter— Audubon  goes  to  jail  for  debt. 

The  seven  years  which  followed  the  outbreak  of  war 
with  England  in  1812  were  the  most  disastrous  in  the 
naturalist's  career.  In  many  respects  they  were  critical 
for  the  entire  country,  since  hundreds  who  were  not 
affected  directly  by  the  war  were  ruined  by  the  finan- 
cial troubles  which  followed  in  its  wake.  To  Audubon 
reverses  came  at  this  time  in  rapid  succession.  Bereft 
of  one  and  then  another  of  his  children,1  with  his  family 
in  straitened  circumstances  in  France,  and  reduced  to 
bankruptcy  himself,  he  finally  resolved  to  throw  up 
trade,  for  which  he  was  never  fitted,  and  to  make  his 
avocation  the  real  business  of  life.  We  shall  see  how, 
by  the  unstinted  use  of  such  talents  as  he  possessed, 
through  unremitting  effort,  and  with  the  aid  of  his  ener- 
getic and  capable  wife,  he  was  able,  at  the  age  of  forty- 
five,  to  turn  failure  into  success. 

After  his  return  to  Henderson  in  the  spring  of  1811, 
Audubon  began  to  look  for  another  opening  in  trade, 

1  While  living  at  Henderson  the  Audubons  lost  their  two  daughters, 
Rosa  and  Lucy,  both  of  whom  died  when  very  young. 

247 


248       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

living  meanwhile  with  his  family  at  the  home  of  Dr. 
Adam  Rankin,  called  "Meadow  Brook  Farm."  Dr. 
Rankin  was  the  first  educated  physician  in  his  district, 
and  was  for  many  years  an  officer  of  the  court.  A  doc- 
tor of  the  older  school  and  a  genuine  lover  of  his  kind, 
with  a  large  heart  and  an  open  hand,  he  made  his  home 
a  hostelry  where  anyone  in  need  could  find  refuge  with- 
out money  and  without  price.  No  doubt  he  was  at- 
tracted to  the  naturalist  by  kindred  tastes,  and  it  is 
known  that  they  became  life-long  friends.  The  old 
house,  to  which  Audubon  refers  in  one  of  his  "Epi- 
sodes," 2  was  built  of  logs,  and  stood  at  some  distance 
from  the  pike,  about  two  miles  from  the  village  in  a 
southeasterly  direction.  There  were  experienced  in 
greatest  frequency,  in  the  winter  of  1811  and  1812,  the 
terrific  earthquakes  that  repeatedly  shocked  the  country 
at  that  time;  there  also  Audubon's  younger  son,  John 
Woodhouse,  was  born  on  November  30, 1812.  The  Ran- 
kin farm  became  at  a  much  later  day  the  site  of  the  vil- 
lage of  Audubon,  which  still  later  was  to  be  incorporated 
in  the  growing  city  of  Henderson,  when  most  of  the  old 
landmarks  had  been  obliterated.  Dr.  Rankin  built  a 
more  commodious  and  pretentious  brick  house  in  the 
village  itself,  and  was  neighbor  to  the  naturalist  for 
many  years,  their  houses  being  on  the  same  or  adjoining 
lots.  He  was  thrice  married  and  had  many  children, 
the  eldest  of  whom,  William  Rankin,  became  Audubon's 
favorite  companion  in  the  field ;  together  they  ransacked 
the  country  for  birds  and  animals  of  every  sort. 

Audubon's  unfortunate  business  relations  with  his 
brother-in-law,  Thomas  W.  Bake  well,  began  in  the  au- 
tumn or  winter  of  1811,  when  the  naturalist  was  in  the 

2  "The  Earthquake,"  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2)  vol.  i, 
p.  280. 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS     249 

East  and  Bakewell  was  about  to  return  to  New  Orleans 
in  the  employ  of  a  firm  of  Liverpool  merchants  who 
dealt  in  cotton.  Bakewell,  who  had  seen  much  of  the 
South  since  the  failure  of  his  uncle  in  New  York,  in- 
duced Audubon  to  join  him  in  an  independent  commis- 
sion business,  with  the  assurance  that  his  French 
nationality  would  help  their  undertakings.  According 
to  Vincent  Nolte,  when  they  were  descending  the  Ohio 
in  December,  1811,  Audubon  displayed  a  business  card, 
showing  the  firm  name  of  "Audubon  and  Bakewell," 
and  indicating  that  they  were  to  deal  in  such  homely 
products  as  pork,  lard  and  flour.  Thomas  Bakewell, 
we  are  told,  taking  with  him  all  the  disposable  funds  of 
Audubon,  who  continued  to  send  him  "almost  all  the 
money'*  that  he  could  raise,  opened  their  business  at  New 
Orleans  in  the  winter  or  spring  of  1812,  just  in  time  for 
the  war,  which  broke  out  in  June,  to  destroy  it.  When 
he  returned  north,  in  August  of  that  year,  Thomas 
Bakewell,  said  the  naturalist,  suddenly  appeared  one 
day  at  "Meadow  Brook  Farm,"  while  he  was  making 
a  drawing  of  an  otter,  and  after  bewailing  their  misfor- 
tune in  trade,  departed. 

At  the  approach  of  spring  in  1812  Audubon  was  hard 
pressed  for  funds,  and  Rozier's  notes  to  him  being  then 
overdue  he  set  out  on  foot  for  Ste.  Genevieve  to  collect 
his  money  in  person.  He  went  out  with  a  party  of 
friendly  Osage  Indians,  but  returned,  still  afoot  and 
unpaid,  with  his  faithful  dog  as  his  only  companion.3 
The  prairies  were  then  flooded  and  converted  into  vast 


'This  journey  was  probably  made  in  February,  though  the  date 
is  given  as  April  (see  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals, 
vol.  i,  p.  44),  if  the  legends  of  four  drawings  of  this  time  are  to  be 
trusted;  all  are  labeled  Pennsylvania,  and  bear  the  following  dates:  Swamp 
Sparrow,  March,  1812;  Spotted  Sandpiper,  April  22,  1812;  White-throated 
Sparrow,  April  24,  1812;  and  Whippoorwill,  May  7,  1812. 


250       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

lakes,  but  Audubon,  anxious  to  reach  his  home,  pressed 
on,  walking,  as  he  said,  "one  hundred  and  sixty-five  miles 
in  a  little  over  three  days,  much  of  the  time  nearly  ankle- 
deep  in  mud  and  water."  It  was  probably  on  this  jour- 
ney, though  it  may  have  been  in  the  previous  year,  that 
an  incident  occurred  which  he  has  related  in  "The 
Prairie,"  4  when,  as  he  declared,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  course  of  his  wanderings  for  upwards  of  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  his  life  was  in  actual  danger  from  his 
fellow  man. 

When  at  last  he  had  obtained  some  ready  money,  Au- 
dubon rode  to  Louisville,  where  he  purchased  on  the 
half-cash,  half-credit  basis  a  small  stock  of  goods,  and 
again  set  up  a  retail  shop  at  Henderson.  This  modest 
venture  promised  so  well  that  he  bought  land  with  the 
intention  of  making  that  town  his  permanent  home. 
"I  purchased,"  said  he,  "a  ground-lot  of  four  acres,  and 
a  meadow  of  four  more  at  the  back  of  the  first."  On 
the  latter,  to  follow  this  account,  were  several  buildings 
and  an  excellent  orchard,  "lately  the  property  of  an 
English  doctor,  who  had  died  on  the  premises  and  left 
the  whole  to  a  servant  woman  as  a  gift,  from  whom  it 
came  to  me  as  a  freehold":  other  land,  he  added,  adja- 
cent to  the  first,  was  later  secured. 

These  curiously  embroidered  statements  regarding 
land  transactions  at  Henderson  in  1813  are  not  in  har- 
mony with  the  existing  records  of  that  frontier  town. 
Henderson,  as  its  historian 5  tells  us,  was  laid  out  orig- 

4  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  81.  In  his  bio- 
graphical sketch  of  1835  Audubon  said  that  this  occurred  on  his  first 
return  from  Ste.  Genevieve  to  Henderson  (in  1811),  a  contradiction  char- 
acteristic of  his  manner  of  dealing  with  biographical  and  historical  details. 
For  an  account  of  this  "Episode,"  see  Chapter  XVIII. 

6  For  early  references  to  Henderson  I  am  indebted  mainly  to  Edmund 
L.  Starling,  History  of  Henderson  County,  Kentucky  (Bibl.  No.  186), 
who  had  access  to  all  the  town  and  county  records. 


LETTER  OF  AUDUBON  TO  FERDINAND  ROZIER,  SIGNED     AUDUBON  &  BAKEWELL,      AND 
DATED  OCTOBER  19,  1813,  DURING  THE  FIRST  PARTNERSHIP  UNDER  THIS  STYLE. 

From  the  Tom  J.  Rozier  MSS. 


251 


252       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

inally  in  1797  into  264  one-acre  lots,  of  which  compara- 
tively few  had  been  sold  at  the  time  of  which  we  speak, 
though  nominal  prices  were  asked  and  a  few  had  been 
given  away  to  encourage  settlement.6  Audubon  is  re- 
corded as  having  purchased  four  one-acre  lots  from  the 
town,  two  in  1813  and  two  in  the  following  year,  while 
a  long  lease  was  taken  upon  land  adjacent  to  the  river 
where  later  rose  his  famous  mill.7 

The  old  Audubon  store  for  general  merchandise,  built 
of  hewn  logs,  in  a  single  story,  stood  at  the  corner  of 
Main  and  Mill  Streets  (now  Second  Street),  fronting 
the  latter,  at  a  point  where  a  modern  departmental 
establishment  has  since  risen.  Adjoining  this  primitive 
store,  on  the  main  street,  was  his  log  dwelling,8  of  one 
and  a  half  stories,  with  a  square  porch  at  the  entrance. 
Immediately  opposite,  on  the  two-acre  strip  of  land  pur- 
chased in  1814,  lay  a  small  pond  which  Audubon  is 
said  to  have  stocked  with  turtles  in  order  to  gratify  his 
special  fondness  for  this  delicacy. 

Audubon's  winning  manners  made  him  a  popular 


aln  1819,  the  year  of  Audubon's  departure,  129  town  lots  had  been 
sold,  while  29  had  been  given  to  privileged  persons  or  to  prospective 
settlers. 

'According  to  the  town  records,  as  quoted  by  Starling,  on  December 
22,  1813,  Audubon  purchased  lots  numbers  95  and  96,  which  were  one- 
half  of  the  square  lying  on  the  west  side  of  Third  Street  and  between 
Green  and  Elm  Streets,  from  General  Samuel  Hopkins,  agent  of  the 
Messrs.  Richard  Henderson  &  Company;  on  September  3,  1814,  he  bought 
lots  numbers  91  and  92,  or  one-half  of  the  square  on  the  west  side  of 
Second  Street,  between  Green  and  Elm.  The  mill  site  on  the  Ohio  River 
was  a  part  of  the  land  given  to  Henderson  by  the  Transylvania  Com- 
pany, the  original  owners  of  a  large  part  of  Kentucky;  this  site  was 
leased  for  99  years  to  J.  J.  Audubon,  was  sold  and  resold,  but  reverted 
to  the  city  of  Henderson  in  1915.  In  the  latter  year  the  project  was 
broached  of  obtaining  the  original  mill  site,  together  with  adjoining  prop- 
erty along  the  river,  and  converting  the  whole  into  a  public  park  dedicated 
to  Audubon. 

'At  a  somewhat  later  time  the  naturalist  occupied  a  one-story  frame 
house,  built  in  1814,  which  stood  at  the  corner  of  Fourth  and  Main  Streets; 
see  Starling,  op.  cit. 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS    253 

figure  among  the  early  settlers  of  this  region,  and  for 
the  space  of  three  years  he  enjoyed  life  as  never  before; 
"the  pleasures,"  he  said,  "which  I  have  felt  at  Hender- 
son, and  under  the  roof  of  that  log-cabin,  can  never  be 
effaced  from  my  heart  until  after  death."  But  in  a 
community  of  exacting  business  men  he  could  never 
have  made  a  permanent  success;  he  was  too  good  a 
target  not  to  be  riddled  by  many  who  were  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  his  liberality  and  easygoing  ways. 
Traveling  from  Frankfort  to  Lexington  in  1810,  Wil- 
son complained  that  the  people  were  all  traders  but 
no  readers,  even  of  the  newspaper;  every  man,  he 
said,  had  "either  some  land  to  buy  or  sell,  some  law-suit, 
some  coarse  hemp  or  corn  to  dispose  of;  and  if  the 
conversation  does  not  to  lead  to  any  of  these,  he  will 
force  it." 

Many  stories,  and  no  doubt  much  idle  gossip,  concern- 
ing Audubon's  life  and  habits,  were  current  at  Hen- 
derson long  after  he  left  the  village.  It  was  said  that 
he  would  often  go  into  the  woods  in  his  pursuit  of  birds 
and  remain  from  home  for  weeks  at  a  time;  that  he  was 
once  known  to  have  followed  a  hawk  for  three  days  in 
succession  and  in  practically  a  straight  course,  swimming 
creeks  when  necessary,  until  it  finally  fell  to  his  gun. 
When  steamboats  made  their  first  appearance  on  the 
Ohio,  they  naturally  excited  the  greatest  interest,  and 
a  favorite  pastime  of  many  of  the  men  and  boys  was 
diving  from  the  side  of  a  boat  into  the  river.  On  one 
of  these  occasions  Audubon  is  said  to  have  made  his 
appearance  in  the  crowd  of  sightseers  and  to  have  as- 
tonished everyone  by  plunging  from  the  bow  and  emerg- 
ing from  beneath  the  stern  of  the  vessel  after  swimming 
under  her  entire  length.  According  to  traditional  ac- 
counts, Mrs.  Audubon,  who  was  also  an  expert  swimmer, 


254       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

would  enter  the  river  clad  in  a  regular  bathing  costume 
and  cross  with  ease  to  the  Indiana  shore. 

In  spite  of  the  hard  times  Audubon  managed  to  keep 
out  of  serious  business  troubles  until  he  entered  into 
another  partnership  with  Thomas  Bakewell,  his  brother- 
in-law.  Their  project  in  this  second  association  was  to 
erect  a  steam  lumber  and  grist  mill  at  Henderson,  which 
of  all  mortal  follies  the  naturalist  considered  in  the  retro- 
spect to  have  been  one  of  the  worst.  It  is  recorded  that 
on  the  sixteenth  day  of  March,  1817,  John  James  Au- 
dubon and  Thomas  W.  Bakewell,  under  the  designation 
of  "Audubon  and  Bakewell,"  applied  to  the  trustees  of 
the  village  for  a  ninety-nine  year  lease  of  a  section  of 
land  on  the  river  front.  Their  petition  was  granted, 
upon  a  consideration  of  $20  per  annum,  and  the  part- 
ners began  to  build  their  mill  on  the  property  and  com- 
pleted it  within  that  year.  Thomas  W.  Pears,9  a  former 
fellow-clerk  of  both  Audubon  and  Bakewell  in  New 
York,  early  joined  the  enterprise,  which  was  regarded 
at  the  time  as  one  of  considerable  magnitude.  Their 
mill,  which  stood  for  ninety-five  years,  became  famous 
in  the  annals  of  the  Ohio  Valley.10  Said  the  historian  of 
Henderson  County,  writing  in  1879: 

The  weather  boarding,  whip-sawed  out  of  yellow  poplar,  is 
still  intact  on  three  sides.  The  joists  are  of  unhewn  logs,  many 
of  them  over  a  foot  in  diameter,  and  raggedly  rough.  The 
foundation  walls  are  built  of  flat,  broken  rock  and  are  four  and 
a  half  feet  thick.  Mr.  Audubon  operated  the  mill  on  a  large 
scale  for  those  times.  His  grist-mill  was  a  great  convenience, 
and  furnished  a  ready  market  for  all  of  the  surplus  wheat 
raised  in  the  surrounding  country.  His  saw-mill  also  was  a 
wonderful  convenience,  doing  the  sawing  for  the  entire  county. 

8  See  Note  15,  Vol.  I,  p.  124. 

10  A  Henderson  correspondent  of  Joseph  M.  Wade,  under  the  signature 
of  "W.  S.  J.,"  August  .8,  1883,  gave  the  following  account  of  the  structure. 


AUDUIiUN  S    MILL    AT    HENDERSON,    KENTUCKY,    SINCE    DESTROYED,    AS    SEEN     FROM 
THE    HANK    OF   THE    OHIO    RIVER. 


After  a  photograph  of  1894,  published  by  courtesy  of  Dr.  R.  W.  Shufeldt. 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS    255 


Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pears,  who  had  no  liking  for  Hender- 
son, early  withdrew  and  sold  their  interest  in  the  mill ll 
to  Audubon  and  Bake  well,  thus  adding  to  their  financial 
embarrassment.  The  engines,  which  seem  to  have  given 
no  end  of  trouble,  were  constructed  by  David  Prentice, 
an  intelligent  Scotch  mechanic ;  since  his  first  work  after 
coming  to  this  country  was  to  erect  a  steam  threshing 
mill  at  "Fatland  Ford,"  his  services  were  probably  se- 
cured by  William  Bakewell,  who  afterwards  helped  to 
establish  him  at  Philadelphia.  While  at  Henderson  he 
is  said  to  have  fitted  a  small  engine  and  paddlewheels  to 
a  keel  boat,  which  was  christened  the  Pike,  and  to 
have  taken  it  up  the  river  to  Pittsburgh.  Prentice 
seems  to  have  entered  the  partnership  and  to  have  re- 
tired with  Bakewell. 

In  order  to  extend  the  sphere  of  their  operations,  Au- 
dubon is  said  to  have  purchased  at  this  time  a  tract  of 
1,200  acres  of  government  land,12  and  to  have  engaged  a 
band  of  stalwart  Yankees  to  fell  and  deliver  the  timber. 
According  to  one  account,  they  were  a  party  of  emi- 
grants who  had  come  to  Henderson  with  their  families 
and  encamped  on  the  river  bank.  For  a  time  all  went 
well,  but  one  day  when  they  failed  to  deliver  their  usual 

The  original  mill  covered  forty-five  by  sixty-five  feet,  and  consisted  of  four 
stories  and  basement;  the  basement  walls  of  stone  stood  four  feet  thick, 
while  at  the  third  story  the  thickness  was  three  feet;  the  three  upper 
stories  were  in  frame.  The  studding  measured  three  by  six,  and  the  rafters 
four  by  eight,  inches.  Many  of  the  large  timbers  that  could  then  be 
seen  were  sound  and  apparently  good  for  a  century  or  more.  Parts  of  the 
old  machinery  that  had  been  used  in  the  grist  mill  were  lying  about  under 
the  eaves;  the  building  was  then  used  as  a  tobacco  stemmery.  See  Joseph 
M.  Wade  (Bibl.  No.  182),  Ornithologist  and  Oologist,  vol.  viii,  p.  79  (1883). 

The  old  Audubon  mill  in  more  recent  times  was  incorporated  into 
a  warehouse  for  the  storage  of  leaf  tobacco;  it  was  burned  to  the 
ground  on  March  18,  1913. 

"The  mill  is  supposed  to  have  cost  about  $15,000;  of  this  sum  Thomas 
Pears  is  said  to  have  contributed  from  $3,000  to  $4,000,  and  William 
Bakewell  a  similar  amount  in  the  interest  of  his  son,  while  Audubon 
presumably  furnished  the  balance. 

"Maria  R.  Audubon,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  47. 


256       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

supply  of  logs,  it  was  found  that  they  had  decamped 
and  fled  down  the  river  towards  the  Mississippi,  taking 
on  their  flatboat  Audubon's  draft  oxen  and  in  fact  all 
the  plunder  that  they  could  lift.  Nothing  was  ever 
recovered  and  but  one  of  the  fugitives  was  ever  seen 
again;  this  man  boarded  a  river  boat  on  which  the  nat- 
uralist happened  to  be  traveling,  and  it  is  said  that  upon 
being  recognized  he  jumped  into  the  river  and  swam 
to  the  shore  like  a  frightened  deer. 

When  Bakewell  finally  withdrew,  Audubon  appears 
to  have  been  left  stranded,  and  the  business  was  taken 
over  by  a  new  set  of  men,  including  another  brother-in- 
law,  Nicholas  Berthoud,  and  Benjamin  Page  of  Pitts- 
burgh, who  continued  it  under  the  name  of  J.  J.  Audu- 
bon &  Company.13  Agents  were  also  secured  at  various 
points  on  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  rivers.  Excepting, 
as  we  must  assuredly  do,  his  ever  staunch  friend,  Nicho- 
las Berthoud,  Audubon  believed  that  he  was  "gulled  by 
all  of  these  men." 

In  1818  a  new  era  of  building  and  general  prosperity 
seemed  to  dawn  in  the  valley  of  the  Ohio.  A  new  bank 
was  chartered  at  Henderson,  and  the  woodwork  of  its 
brick  structure  was  furnished  by  Audubon's  mill.14 

"In  his  journal  of  1820  Audubon  said  that  after  the  withdrawal  of 
Bakewell,  "men  with  whom  I  had  long  been  associated  offered  me  a 
partnership.  I  accepted,  and  a  small  ray  of  light  appeared  in  my  busi- 
ness, but  a  revolution  occasioned  by  a  numberless  quantity  of  failures  put 
all  to  an  end." 

"One  of  J.  J.  Audubon  &  Company's  bills  is  here  reproduced  from 
Starling,  op.  cit. 

"To   the    President    and    Directors    of   the    Bank   of    Henderson 
to  Henderson  steam  mill: 

"To  three  pieces  of  scantling,  56  feet,  4y2  c $  2.52 

"To  ten  pieces  of  scantling,  34  feet — 

"To  sixty  rafters,  714  feet,  at  4  c 28.56 

"To  five  pieces  scantling,  40  feet,  at  3  c 1.20 

"To  fifteen  joists  [?],  278y2  feet,  at  6  c 16.71 


"J.  J.  Audubon  &  Co."  $48.99 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS    257 

This  bank,  however,  failed  in  the  course  of  two 
years,  and  forty  others  scattered  throughout  that  sec- 
tion broke  in  rapid  succession,  after  having  done  little 
more  than  add  to  the  flood  of  worthless  paper  notes  that 
was  demoralizing  business  and  sending  hundreds  into 
bankruptcy. 

The  mill  was  in  operation  barely  two  years.  The  ma- 
chinery, of  which  a  wooden  bolting  shaft  and  wooden 
cog  wheels  remained  as  a  curiosity  to  recent  times,  seems 
to  have  worked  badly  from  the  start.  But  aside  from 
the  inexperience  of  the  builders  and  the  financial  trou- 
bles of  the  day,  the  enterprise  was  foredoomed  to  fail- 
ure in  a  district  which  raised  but  little  wheat,  and  in 
which  the  demand  for  lumber  was  then  comparatively 
slight.  "How  I  labored,"  said  Audubon,  "at  that  in- 
fernal mill!  But  it  is  over  now;  I  am  old,  and  try  to 
forget  as  fast  as  possible  all  the  different  trials  of  those 
sad  days." 

In  the  course  of  the  Audubon  and  Bakewell  partner- 
ship 15  the  naturalist  became  involved  in  a  personal  quar- 
rel with  a  man  whose  initials  are  given  as  "S— 
B—  — ."  It  seems  that  in  1817  Audubon's  mechanic, 
David  Prentice,  had  built  for  him  a  small  steamboat, 
though  for  what  purpose  is  not  known.  When  their  in- 
terests were  severed,  we  are  told,  Mr.  B—  -  purchased 
this  steamer,  but  paid  for  it  in  worthless  paper.  The 
captain  of  the  craft  ran  her  down  to  the  Mississippi  and 
thence  to  New  Orleans,  and  Audubon,  who  was  deter- 
mined to  arrest  this  man  if  necessary,  started  in  pursuit 
in  a  skiff.  He  failed,  however,  to  overhaul  the  fugitive, 
and  reached  New  Orleans  only  to  find  that  his  vessel 

"According  to  W.  G.  Bakewell,  Bakewell-Page-Campbell  (Bibl.  No. 
200),  Thomas  Bakewell  sold  his  interest  in  the  store  and  mill  to  Audubon 
in  1817,  but  this  is  contradicted  by  other  accounts.  For  the  incident  which 
follows,  see  Maria  R.  Audubon,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  34. 


258       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

had  been  surrendered  to  another  claimant.  This  was 
probably  in  May,  1819,  for  in  his  journal  of  the  follow- 
ing year,  under  date  of  November  23,  when  he  was  again 
moving  down  the  rivers  but  in  more  leisurely  fashion, 
he  speaks  of  two  large  eagle's  nests,  one  of  which  he 
remembered  having  seen  as  he  "went  to  New  Orleans 
eighteen  months"  before. 

Through  the  researches  of  a  later  historian  I  am  now 
able  to  give  a  more  exact  account  of  this  affair.  The 
purchasers  of  the  steamboat  were  William  R.  Bowen, 
Samuel  Adams  Bowen,  Robert  Speed,  Edmund 
Townes,  Obediah  Smith,  George  Brent  and  Bennett 
Marshall,  who  immediately  sued  Audubon  in  the  sum  of 
$10,000,  on  the  plea  that  he  had  maliciously  taken  out 
an  attachment  upon  the  vessel  in  New  Orleans,  where  it 
had  been  detained.  They  represented  to  the  judge  of 
the  circuit  court,  Henry  P.  Broadnax,  that  Audubon 
was  about  to  leave  Kentucky,  and  a  warrant  was  issued 
to  arrest  him;  he  was  taken  into  custody,  said  the  narra- 
tor whom  I  am  following,  "but  executed  a  bail  bond  in 
the  sum  of  $10,000  with  Fayette  Posey  as  surety,  and 
was  released."  Convinced  that  a  trial  at  Henderson 
would  lead  only  to  a  defeat  of  justice,  Audubon  now 
served  notice  that  he  would  apply  for  a  change  of  venue 
to  another  county.  "That  notice  together  with  the  other 
papers  in  the  action,  is  among  the  records  of  the  Daviess 
circuit  court,  at  Owensboro,  Kentucky.  It  was  written 
and  signed  by  Audubon.  Application  for  a  change  of 
venue  was  made  at  Hardinsburg  and  the  case  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  Daviess  circuit  court."  When  the  case  was 
called,  the  plaintiffs  asked  for  a  continuance,  and  it  was 
granted  them,  but  when  the  case  was  called  again  at  the 
next  term  of  court,  the  plaintiffs  failed  to  appear,  and 
the  action  was  finally  dismissed. 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS    259 

Returning  home,  Audubon  was  obliged  to  walk  from 
the  mouth  of  the  Ohio  River  to  Shawnee  Town.  Upon 
reaching  Henderson  he  found  that  Mr.  Bowen  had  an- 
ticipated him.  Acting  upon  advice,  he  was  prepared  for 
an  encounter  with  this  man,  who  as  his  neighbors  de- 
clared, had  sworn  to  kill  him,  and  "whose  violent  and 
ungovernable  temper  was  only  too  well  known."  The 
anticipated  encounter  ensued.  Audubon,  who  was  then 
carrying  his  right  hand  in  a  sling  from  a  recent  injury 
received  in  his  mill,  waited,  as  he  said,  until  he  had  re- 
ceived twelve  severe  blows  from  his  assailant's  bludgeon ; 
then  with  his  left  hand  he  drew  a  dagger  and  struck  in 
his  own  defense.  His  assailant  was  felled  to  the  ground, 
but  happily  the  wound  inflicted  was  not  mortal.  Mr. 
Bowen  was  carried  away  on  a  plank,  and  when  the  affair 
was  settled  in  the  judiciary  court,  according  to  a  Hen- 
derson tradition,  Judge  Broadnax  gravely  left  the 
bench,  approached  the  man  who  had  been  under  charge 
of  assault,  and  said:  "Mr.  Audubon,  you  committed  a 
serious  offense — an  exceedingly  serious  offense  Sir — in 
failing  to  kill  the  d-  -  rascal."16  "Thomas  Bakewell," 
added  the  naturalist,  "who  possessed  more  brains  than  I, 
sold  his  town  lots  and  removed  to  Cincinnati,  where  he 
has  made  a  large  fortune,  and  I  am  glad  of  it.17 

When  the  mill  was  finally  closed  and  the  company 
dissolved  in  1819,  Audubon  as  usual  was  the  heaviest 

"See  Dixon  L.  Merritt  (Bibl.  No.  226a),  "Audubon  in  Kentucky," 
The  Taylor-Trotwood  Magazine,  vol.  10  (1909),  p.  293. 

17  Thomas  Bakewell  later  became  a  successful  builder  of  steamboats, 
first  at  Pittsburgh,  and  after  1824  at  Cincinnati,  where  he  was  an  im- 
portant factor  in  the  rising  commerce  of  the  Ohio  Valley,  and  where 
he  left  his  mark  on  the  history  of  that  city.  As  a  theoretical  mechanic 
in  iron  and  wood  he  is  said  to  have  had  no  superior;  his  business  was 
nearly  destroyed  in  the  panic  of  1837,  and  he  never  regained  his  financial 
position.  To  his  credit  also  it  must  be  added  that  in  1860,  at  the  age 
of  seventy-two,  he  began  at  the  bottom  of  the  ladder  again  by  engaging 
as  a  clerk  with  a  paper  company  at  Cincinnati,  and,  refusing  the  proffered 


260       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

loser.  Arrested  and  sent  to  the  Louisville  jail  for  debt, 
he  was  able  to  obtain  release  only  by  declaring  himself 
a  bankrupt  in  court.  "I  paid  all  I  could,"  18  he  said  in 
his  journal  of  the  following  year,  "and  left  Henderson 
poor  and  miserable  in  thought.  My  intention  to  go  to 
France  and  see  my  mother  and  sister  was  frustrated, 
and  at  last  I  resorted  to  my  poor  talents  to  maintain 
you  and  your  dear  mother,  who  fortunately  became  easy 
at  her  change  of  condition,  and  gave  me  a  spirit  such 
as  I  really  needed,  to  meet  the  surly  looks  and  cold  re- 
ception of  those  who  so  shortly  before  were  pleased  to 
call  me  their  friend."  "I  parted,"  to  revert  to  his  later 
account,  "with  every  particle  of  property  I  held,  to  my 
creditors,  keeping  only  the  clothes  I  wore  on  that  day, 
my  original  drawings,  and  my  gun."  Without  a  dollar 
in  his  pocket  he  left  Henderson  and  walked  to  Louisville 
alone;  "this,"  he  said  on  reflection,  "was  the  saddest  of 
all  my  journies,  the  only  time  in  my  life  when  the  Wild 
Turkeys  that  so  often  crossed  my  path,  and  the  thou- 
sands of  lesser  birds  that  enlivened  the  woods  and  the 
prairies,  all  looked  like  enemies,  and  I  turned  my  eyes 

aid  of  his  children,  he  did  not  give  up  work  until  his  eightieth  year,  seven 
years  before  his  death  in  1874.  See  W.  G.  Bakewell,  Bakewell-Page- 
Campbell  (Bibl.  No.  200). 

18  Audubon  was  not  so  accurate  when  in  his  biographical  sketch  of 
1835  he  said:  "Finally  I  paid  every  bill,  and  at  last  left  Henderson 
probably  forever  .  .  .  ,"  for  when  at  Charleston  with  Bachman  in  1834, 
one  of  his  former  creditors  attempted  to  sue  him  for  debt  and  apparently 
carried  his  case  to  court.  When  Bachman  asked  for  an  explanation, 
Audubon  wrote  from  New  York,  April  5,  1834,  as  follows:  "Respecting 
the  suit  let  me  tell  you  .  .  .  that  I  went  to  Gaol  at  Louisville  after  having 
given  up  all  to  my  creditors,  and  that  I  took  the  benefit  of  the  act  of 
insolvency  at  the  Louisville  Court  House,  Kentucky,  before  Judge  Fortunatus 
Crosby  &  many  witnesses,  and  that  a  copy  of  the  record  of  that  step 
can  easily  be  had  from  that  court  ...  I  wish  friend  Donkin  to  do  all 
he  can  to  put  a  Conclusion — stop  to  this  matter,  for  it  makes  me  sick 
at  heart."  The  lawyer  here  referred  to  was  probably  Judge  Dunkin, 
friend  of  Bachman  and  distinguished  in  his  profession,  who  had  a  planta- 
tion at  Waccamaw,  near  Charleston,  South  Carolina  (see  Chapter  XXVII, 
Vol.  II,  p.  64. 


FINAL  REVERSES  IN  BUSINESS     261 

from  them,  as  if  I  could  have  wished  that  they  never 
existed." 

Passing  down  the  Ohio  in  the  following  year  Audu- 
bon  made  these  entries  in  his  diary: 

November  *2nd,  1820.  Floated  down  slowly  within  two  miles 
of  Henderson.  I  can  scarcely  conceive  that  I  stayed  there 
eight  years,  and  passed  therein  comfortably,  for  it  is  undoubt- 
edly on  the  poorest  spot  in  the  country,  according  to  my  pres- 
ent opinion. 

Nov.  3rd,  1820.  We  left  our  harbor  at  daybreak,  and 
passed  Henderson  about  sunrise.  I  looked  on  the  mill  perhaps 
for  the  last  time,  and  with  thoughts  that  made  my  blood  al- 
most run  cold  bit  it  an  eternal  farewell. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE  AND  THE  HISTORY 
OF  HIS  FAMILY  IN  FRANCE 

Death  of  Lieutenant  Audubon — Contest  over  his  will — Disposition  of  his 
estate— The  fictitious  $17,000— Unsettled  claims  of  Formon  and  Ross- 
Illusions  of  biographers — Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau — Audubon's 
relations  with  the  family  in  France  broken — Death  of  the  naturalist's 
stepmother — The  du  Puigaudeaus — Sources  of  "enigma." 

Lieutenant  Jean  Audubon,  as  already  recorded,  died 
at  Nantes  in  1818,  at  a  time  when  his  son's  financial 
troubles  in  America  were  culminating,  and  left  an  estate, 
then  none  too  large,  for  the  sole  enjoyment  of  his  widow 
during  her  lifetime.  The  naturalist,  so  far  as  is  known, 
never  received  a  penny  in  payment  of  bequests  made  by 
either  his  father  or  stepmother,  but  the  reasons  for  this 
fact  were  far  different  from  those  which  his  biographers 
have  assigned. 

We  have  referred  to  the  curious  wording  which 
appears  in  the  six  different  wills  that  were  executed  by 
Lieutenant  Jean  Audubon  and  Anne  Moynet,  his  wife, 
between  the  years  1812  and  1821.1  The  first  four  of 
these  documents  2  were  of  a  mutual  nature,  and  were 
so  drawn  that  the  survivor  should  enjoy  the  entire 
property  of  the  other  during  his  or  her  lifetime,  but  this 
eventually  was  to  be  divided  between  their  two  children, 
or  heirs  of  the  latter  should  any  exist.  In  Jean  Audu- 
bon's last  will,  made  at  Coueron  on  the  15th  of  March, 

1  See  Chapter  IX,  p.  63. 

2  For  complete  text  of  these  wills,  in  the  original,  See  Appendix  I, 
Documents  13-18. 

262 


THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE    263 

1816,  he  added  the  provision  that  in  case  his  "disposi- 
tions in  favor  of  Jean  Rabain  and  Rose  Bouffard,  wife 
of  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  should  be  attacked  and  an- 
nulled," he  bequeathed  his  entire  estate,  without  excep- 
tion, to  his  wife,  Anne  Moynet,  for  her  sole  use.  His 
fears,  as  already  intimated,  were  well  grounded,  and 
his  will  was  immediately  contested  by  four  nieces, 
Mme.  Lejeune  de  Vaugeon  of  Nantes,  Mme.  Jean 
Louis  Lissabe,  whose  husband  was  a  pilot,  and  Anne 
and  Domenica  Audubon,  seamstresses  at  Bayonne.3 
This  trial  dragged  on  in  the  courts  for  a  long  time,  and 
served  further  to  impoverish  Madame  Audubon,  who 
was  obliged  to  dispose  of  most  of  her  valuable  effects, 
but  it  was  finaly  settled  by  a  compromise  in  1820.  In 
that  year,  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  she  left  "La  Ger- 
betiere"  to  live  with  her  daughter  and  son-in-law  at 
"Les  Tourterelles"  close  by,  where  she  remained  until 
her  death  on  October  18,  1821. 

It  seems  incredible  that  Audubon  should  not  have 
heard  of  the  death  of  his  foster  mother,  since  he  had  been 
devotedly  attached  to  her  in  his  youth  and  was  moreover 
a  beneficiary  under  her  will.  Yet  on  August  6,  1826, 
he  wrote  in  his  journal:  "My  plans  now  are  to  go  to 
Manchester,  to  Derbyshire  to  visit  Lord  Stanley,  Bir- 
mingham, London  for  three  weeks,  Edinburgh,  back  to 
London,  and  then  to  France,  Paris,  Nantes,  to  see  my 
venerable  stepmother,  Brussels,  and  return  to  Eng- 
land." On  September  30  of  the  same  year  he  wrote 
from  Liverpool:  "I  long  to  enter  my  old  garden  on 
the  Loire  and  with  rapid  steps  reach  my  mother, — yes, 
my  mother !  the  only  one  I  truly  remember ;  and  no  son 


*  See  Note  4,  Vol.  I,  p.  27.  The  suit  brought  by  these  plaintiffs  was  based 
upon  a  French  law,  which  at  that  time  debarred  a  natural  child  from 
inheriting  property. 


264       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ever  had  a  better,  nor  more  loving  one."  4  Again  in 
1828  he  spoke  of  this  estimable  woman  as  if  she  were 
then  alive,  although  she  had  been  dead  seven  years. 

In  Madame  Audubon's  last  will,  which  was  made  in 
the  July  preceding  her  death,  she  left  her  property  to 
be  equally  divided  between  her  two  adopted  children, 
"Mr.  Jean  Audubon,  called  Jean  Rabin,  husband  of 
Lucy  Bakewell,  and  who  I  believe  is  at  present  in  the 
United  States  of  America,  and  to  Rose  Bouffard,  wife 
of  M.  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau,  my  son-in-law, 
who  is  living  at  Coueron";  she  also  took  care  to  guard 
against  the  pretensions  of  any  spurious  heirs,  and  to 
make  provision  for  her  grandchildren  in  case  of  the 
death  of  either  or  both  of  her  heirs  direct. 

Having  given  the  precise,  if  somewhat  prosaic,  re- 
corded facts  of  the  case,  we  will  quote  the  story  nar- 
rated by  the  naturalist's  biographers,  who  never  could 
have  seen  the  legal  documents  and  who  thus  had  only 
hearsay  and  conjecture  on  which  to  build: 

At  this  juncture  [of  critical  business  affairs  at  Henderson], 
the  father  of  Audubon  died;  but  for  some  unfortunate  cause 
he  did  not  receive  legal  notice  for  more  than  a  year.  On  be- 
coming acquainted  with  the  fact  he  traveled  to  Philadelphia  to 
obtain  funds,  but  was  unsuccessful.  His  father  had  left  him  his 
property  in  France  of  La  Gibitere  [Gerbetiere],  and  seven- 
teen thousand  dollars  which  had  been  deposited  with  a  mer- 
chant in  Richmond,  Virginia.  Audubon,  however,  took  no  steps 
to  obtain  possession  of  his  estate  in  France,  and  in  after  years, 
when  his  sons  had  grown  up,  sent  one  of  them  to  France,  for 
the  purpose  of  legally  transferring  the  property  to  his  own 
sister  Rosa.  The  merchant  who  held  possession  of  the  seventeen 
thousand  dollars  would  not  deliver  them  up  until  Audubon 

"  *  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audub on  and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  I, 
pp.  iii  and  130. 


AX   OLD   STREET  IX   THE    COUKROX   OF   TO-DAY. 


TOURTERET.LES,      COUKROX,    FTXAL    HOME    OF    AXXE    MOYXET    AUDUBOX,    AND 
THE    RESTIXO   PLACE    OK   EXACT   RECORDS   OF   THE    XATURALIST's 
HIRTH    AND    EARLY    I.I  IT. 


THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE     265 

proved  himself  to  be  the  son  of  Commodore  Audubon.  Before 
this  could  be  done  the  merchant  died  insolvent,  and  the  legatee 
never  recovered  a  dollar  of  his  money.5 

A  key  to  the  origin  of  the  fictitious  seventeen  thou- 
sand dollars  is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  letters  of 
Jean  Audubon  to  Francis  Dacosta,  written  in  1805,6 
where  he  refers  to  certain  unsettled  business  claims 
against  his  former  partners,  Messrs.  Formon  and  Ross, 
who  had  been  respectively  interested  with  him  in  two 
vessels,  Le  Comte  d'Artois  and  the  Annette,  the  history 
of  which  has  already  been  noticed.7  They  were  also  en- 
gaged at  a  later  time  in  certain  iron-works  above  Rich- 
mond, Virginia,  but  with  these  Lieutenant  Audubon  was 
not  directly  concerned.  Formon,  his  partner  in  Santo 
Domingo  trade,  who  was  charged  with  having  drawn 
$1,650  in  excess  of  his  share,  had  died  without  making 
any  final  settlement  of  their  accounts;  another  asso- 
ciate, Edward,  had  died  in  London  leaving  an  unset- 
tled claim  of  $300;  while  David  Ross,  who  was  owing 
a  certain  sum,  had  also  died  without  liquidating  his  debt. 
The  amount  of  the  latter  claim  probably  was  not  large, 
since  Dacosta  was  instructed  to  use  this  sum  for  his 
needs  in  developing  the  mine  at  "Mill  Grove"  should 
he  be  so  fortunate  as  to  collect  it;  "when  you  receive  my 
papers  from  Miers  Fisher,"  said  Lieutenant  Audubon 
in  his  letter  of  the  22d  of  June,  1805,  "you  will  find  a 
promissory  note  of  Mr.  Samuel  Plaisance  of  Richmond, 
for  the  business  of  the  widow  Ross.  If  there  were  jus- 
tice there  this  sum  should  be  paid  to  me  with  the  costs." 

Lieutenant  Audubon  was  never  able  to  collect  these 

5  Lucy  B.  Audubon,  ed.,  The  Life  of  John  James  Audubon  (Bibl.  No. 
73),  p.  55. 

•See  Chapter  VIII,  p.  121. 
7  See  Chapter  II,  pp.  33  and  34. 


266       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

different  amounts,  which  probably  did  not  much  exceed 
$2,000,  but  an  echo  of  one  of  these  transactions  ap- 
peared as  late  as  1819,  when  Audubon's  brother-in-law 
sent  him  a  document  referring  to  the  claim  on  the  Ross 
estate,  in  the  hope  that  some  money  might  still  be  forth- 
coming, writing  as  follows :  8 

In  turning  over  some  letters  I  have  found  a  letter  of  Mr. 
David  Rost  [Ross],  and  a  memorandum  that  I  thought  pointed 
to  what  was  referred  to  in  it.  As  I  have  sometimes  heard  it 
said  that  this  Mr.  David  Rost  owed  a  considerable  sum,  it 
should  be  possible  that  this  letter,  which  is  in  English,  might 
be  of  use  to  you.  I  cannot  say  anything  about  it,  not  knowing 
your  language,  and  not  having  ventured  to  get  it  translated, 
from  fear  of  compromising  us,  I  am  sending  it  to  you,  [and] 
you  will  judge  of  its  importance.  Should  chance  will  that  it 
bring  you  money,  send  me  some  of  it,  I  beg  you,  for  I  am  in 
great  need  of  it. 

The  same  biographer  whom  we  have  just  quoted 
said  in  reference  to  "La  Gerbetiere" :  "This  estate  was 
left  by  Commodore  Audubon  to  his  son  John  James, 
who  conveyed  it  to  his  sister  without  even  visiting  the 
domain  he  so  generously  willed  away."  We  have  now 
seen  what  provisions  were  actually  made  for  the  dis- 
position of  this  property  under  the  terms  of  the  various 
wills  of  Lieutenant  Audubon  and  his  wife.  We  need 
only  add  that  not  long  after  his  father's  death,  the  nat- 
uralist lost  touch  with  his  family  in  France ;  his  one- 
half  interest  in  his  stepmother's  estate,  which  was  heav- 
ily encumbered,  was  never  claimed,  and  at  a  much  later 
day  was  informally  relinquished  in  favor  of  his  sister 
and  her  family. 

8  From  G.  L.  du  Puigaudeau's  copy  of  his  letter  to  John  James  Audu- 
bon (at  Henderson),  dated  "Coueron,  August  15,  1819,"  translated  from 
the  French.  (Lavigne  MSS.) 


THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE     267 

During  his  Henderson  period  Audubon  was  in 
communication  with  his  brother-in-law,  Gabriel  Loyen 
du  Puigaudeau,  who  kept  him  informed  in  regard  to 
all  that  transpired  in  their  French  home;  on  July  26, 
1817,  the  naturalist  had  given  him  a  power  of  attorney, 
the  curious  wording  of  which  has  already  been  noticed.9 
Whether  deterred  by  the  legal  complications  which  soon 
followed,  displeased  by  the  mode  of  settlement,  or  for 
what  other  cause  now  unknown  to  us,  Audubon  seems 
to  have  severed  all  relations  with  his  family  at  Coueron, 
or  to  have  written  to  them  only  after  long  lapses  of 
silence.  On  New  Year's  Day,  1820,  Gabriel  du  Puigau- 
deau dispatched  to  him  a  friendly  letter  10  of  greeting: 

I  take  the  opportunity  at  the  renewal  of  the  year,  to  offer 
you  the  good  wishes  of  the  entire  family.  Our  every  desire  is 
that  you,  your  beloved  wife,  and  dear  children  may  be  happy, 
that  you  may  prosper,  that  you  may  enjoy  good  health,  and 
this  is  the  wish  of  your  nieces  also.  But,  awaiting  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  you  all,  by  what  fatality  during  the  past  eighteen 
months  have  I  not  had  any  news  of  you,  why  no  reply  to  at 
least  twenty  letters  that  I  have  written  to  you?  Can  I  have 
been  so  unfortunate  that  some  one  has  given  you  any  report 
that  would  prejudice  you  against  me?  I  do  not  believe  that 
there  could  exist  any  one  who  would  be  able  to  do  this,  at  least 
with  truth;  if  some  one  has  really  sought  to  estrange  your 
friendship  for  me,  act  with  frankness,  and  tell  me  your  sus- 
picions. I  do  not  believe  it  would  be  difficult  to  destroy  them, 
and  I  even  promise  that  I  would  offer  you  no  reproach  for 
having  momentarily  believed  it,  should  this  after  all  have  oc- 
curred. For  what  concerns  our  business  affairs,  I  refer  you  to 
my  letters  which  have  preceded  this. 

8  See  Vol.  I,  p.  64. 

"This,  and  the  letter  to  follow,  translated  from  Gabriel  du  Puigau- 
deau's  copies.  (Lavigne  MSS.) 


268       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

This  letter  was  sent  to  Henderson,  Kentucky,  more 
than  a  year  after  the  naturalist  had  finally  left  that 
state;  at  the  moment  it  was  written  he  was  making  his 
way  down  the  Ohio  River  to  New  Orleans  in  a  flatboat, 
"the  poorest  man  aboard,"  as  he  thought  at  the  time. 
Writing  in  his  journal  on  December  26,  1820,  when 
they  had  touched  at  Natchez,  Audubon  said  that  on 
that  day  he  had  received  letters  from  his  wife,  who  was 
then  at  Cincinnati,  written  on  November  7  and  14,  and 
that  the  last  "contained  one  from  my  brother,  G.  Loyen 
Dupuigaudeau,  dated  July  24,  1820."  If  the  month  in 
this  instance  was  misnamed,  this  might  have  been  the 
following  letter,  which  was  written  at  Coueron  on  the 
twenty-fourth  of  June,  1820,  and  sent  to  Henderson 
like  the  last. 

Two  years  have  passed  without  our  having  any  news  of 
you.  What  a  long  lapse  of  time,  and  in  what  anxiety  are  we 
plunged !  In  God's  name  give  us  some  news  about  yourself,  if 
it  be  but  a  word  to  set  us  at  rest  in  regard  to  your  condition. 
I  should  not  know  how  to  persuade  myself  that  you  were  not 
on  friendly  terms  with  me,  since  I  have  given  you  no  cause 
[for  grievance]  ;  if  it  is  so,  be  generous  enough  to  relieve  me 
from  this  anxiety.  The  business  matters  of  Mr.  Audubon  are 
at  last  concluded,  and  I  await  only  the  return  of  the  papers 
from  Cayes  to  set  them  in  order  with  justice  [to  all].11 

Profiting  by  an  opportunity  for  New  York,  I  have  only 
time  to  refer  to  my  letters  of  15  September,  30  October,  19 
December,  1818,  1st  February,  15  April,  15  May,  3d  August, 
1819,  in  all  their  contents. 

Madam  Audubon  is  coming  to  live  with  us ;  she  found  her- 
self isolated  at  "La  Gerbetiere,"  and  was  very  dull  there;  I 
wish  that  she  may  be  contented  here.  She  does  not  cease  to 

"This  reference  is  evidently  to  the  litigation  over  Lieutenant  Audu- 
bon's  will  and  the  final  disposition  of  his  estate. 


THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE    269 

speak  of  you,  and  is  as  much  astonished  as  I  am  that  we  re- 
ceive no  news  of  you. 

The  naturalist's  elder  son,  Victor,  visited  Coueron 
about  the  year  1835,  when  his  cousin,  Gabriel  Loyen  du 
Puigaudeau  the  second,  who  was  nearly  of  the  same  age, 
returned  from  military  service  to  meet  him.  He  was 
disappointed  at  the  appearance  of  his  father's  old  home, 
"La  Gerbetiere,"  which  had  not  been  occupied  by  the 
family  for  fifteen  years.12 

Rosa  Audubon  du  Puigaudeau,  the  naturalist's  sis- 
ter, died  at  "Les  Tourterelles"  after  August  3,  1842, 
leaving  a  daughter,  Rose  du  Puigaudeau,  who  died 
without  issue,  October  20,  1881,  and,  if  we  are  correctly 
informed,  one  son,  Gabriel  Loyen  du  Puigaudeau  the 
second,  who  died  at  "Les  Tourterelles,"  Coueron,  June 
23,  1892,  when  past  his  eightieth  year;  a  daughter  of 
this  only  son  was  married  to  Monsieur  L.  Lavigne, 
notary  at  Coueron.  At  the  time  of  her  uncle's  death, 
his  property,  including  the  personal  records  of  Lieuten- 
ant Jean  Audubon,  passed  into  the  hands  of  Madame 
Lavigne,  whc  is  a  grand  step-niece  of  the  naturalist,  and 
who  aside  from  her  children,  so  far  as  known,  is  the 
only  surviving  member  of  his  family  in  France. 

At  this  point  we  must  examine  a  little  more  care- 
fully the  peculiar  status  of  what  Audubon  referred  to 


18  It  was  thought  that  Victor  had  come  to  settle  the  family's  financial 
affairs,  and  his  uncle  and  aunt  asked  if  this  were  the  case;  he  replied 
that  it  was  not,  that  the  children  of  Jean  Audubon  who  were  in  America 
had  taken  their  [share  of  the]  property  in  that  country,  while  those  in 
France  had  theirs  in  France;  he  considered  that  all  was  settled,  but  if 
Rosa's  children  wished  for  any  money,  they  had  but  to  ask  for  it,  and 
the  heirs  in  America  would  send  them  what  they  desired;  the  subject 
was  then  dropped.  A  considerable  correspondence  followed  this  visit,  but 
the  letters  were  all  destroyed  about  twenty-five  years  ago  by  Monsieur  du 
Puigaudeau,  when  putting  his  effects  in  order.  This  account  is  given  on 
the  authority  of  Monsieur  Lavigne. 


270       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

as  the  "enigma"  of  his  life.  In  some  of  his  private 
journals  and  letters  13  he  dramatically  declared  that  a 
mystery  had  surrounded  his  early  existence,  which  he 
was  bound  by  a  solemn  oath  exacted  by  his  father  never 
to  reveal,  and  that  this  secret  must  be  carried  by  him 
to  the  grave.  If  it  be  the  duty  of  a  biographer  to  make 
the  true  character  of  his  subject  known,  the  passage  of 
time  would  now  seem  to  sanction  reference  to  many 
personal  matters  which  a  century  ago  should  have  been 
more  rigidly  guarded.  I  enter  upon  this  task  solely 
with  the  view  of  placing  Audubon's  character  in  a  truer 
and  fairer  light. 

The  essential  facts  regarding  Audubon's  birth  and 
early  years  have  now  been  given,  and  this  is  the  true, 
though  possibly  not  the  complete,  story.  Anything 
which  we  now  add,  however,  can  be  regarded  as  little 
better  than  speculation.  Audubon  is  said  to  have  received 
through  his  father  a  large  sum  of  money  from  an  un- 
known or  unnamed  source,14  but  as  such  stories  are  apt 
to  be  exaggerated,  especially  when  an  ocean  intervenes 
between  a  testator  and  his  heir,  the  statement  may  be 
erroneous ;  we  have  seen  that  Lieutenant  Audubon  was 
not  in  a  position  to  make  such  gifts  himself  had  he  been 
so  disposed.  If  the  report  were  true,  the  money  may 
have  come  from  the  estate  of  his  mother,  and  through 
the  agency  of  the  mysterious  "Audubon  of  La  Ro- 

13  These  passages,  which  were  shown  to  me  by  his  granddaughter,  Miss 
Maria  R.  Audubon,  in  1914,  but  not  for  publication,  occur  in  his  journals 
under  the  following  dates;  June  4,  1826,  at  sea;  March  15,  1827,  at  Edin- 
burgh, after  describing  a  visit  of  Lady  Selkirk  and  her  daughter;  again 
on  the  18th  of  March  of  the  same  or  the  following  year;  and  on  October 
8,  1828,  when  writing  to  his  wife  from  Paris  and  reflecting  on  the  advisabil- 
ity of  visiting  his  old  home  at  Nantes.  While  these  extraordinary  passages 
are  not  quoted,  out  of  deference  to  the  wishes  of  his  granddaughters,  it 
seems  only  just  to  Audubon,  in  view  of  the  revelations  that  have  already 
been  made,  to  add  this  brief  reference  to  the  incidents  in  question. 

"  This  statement  was  made  to  me  in  1914  by  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon. 


THE  ENIGMA  OF  AUDUBON'S  LIFE     271 

chelle,"  who  is  said  to  have  been  a  politician.15  In  some 
of  the  passages  which  we  do  not  quote,  the  naturalist 
would  have  his  family  believe  that  he  was  of  noble  birth, 
that  his  adoptive  father  was  not  his  true  father,  and 
that  both  he  and  Lieutenant  Audubon  had  received 
irremediable  injury  through  the  treachery  of  the  mys- 
terious uncle,  "Audubon  of  La  Rochelle."  Now  these 
strange  statements  of  the  naturalist,  though  not  in 
accord  with  the  facts  as  they  are  known  to  us,  should  be 
interpreted,  I  believe,  in  the  light  of  possible  stories  that 
may  have  come  to  him  in  the  glamour  of  his  .youth ;  his 
mind  may  have  been  diverted  by  them,  he  may  have 
believed  them,  but  of  this  nothing  now  can  positively 
be  known.  To  continue  our  conjectures,  it  is  possible 
that  the  plain  conflict  between  these  supposititious  tales 
and  the  facts  that  were  revealed  at  his  adoption,  his 
baptism,  and  in  the  wills  of  his  father  and  stepmother, 
as  well  as  by  the  lawsuit  which  followed  the  former's 
death,  all  led  him  to  resort  to  "enigma."  We  should 
also  remember  that  the  naturalist,  who  was  careless  of 
dates  and  historical  facts,  had  finally  left  his  home  at 
the  age  of  twenty,  when  young  men  as  a  rule  are  not 
curious  about  their  family  history,  and  that  he  reached 
the  reminiscent  stage  late  in  life.  It  seems  probable 
that  the  wording  of  his  father's  will  and  the  later  at- 
tempt to  annul  it  finally  induced  him  to  wash  his  hands 
of  the  whole  matter,  even  to  breaking  off  relations  with 
his  family  in  France.  Feeling,  as  undoubtedly  he  did, 
that  public  knowledge  of  those  conditions,  for  which 
he  was  in  no  way  responsible,  might  be  a  bar  to  all 
future  aspirations,  he  was  not  loath  to  let  the  matter 
rest,  so  far  as  he  and  his  immediate  family  were  con- 
cerned, under  a  cloak  of  mystery.  If  such  were  in  truth. 

»  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  27. 


272       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  case,  I  think  few  would  find  cause  to  blame  him. 

When  we  view  the  whole  subject  in  this  double  light, 
of  a  duty  owed  to  his  family  and  of  the  possibility  that 
conflicting  stories  had  come  to  him  at  an  earlier  day, 
any  embroidery  or  confusion  which  appears  in  many  of 
his  statements  of  a  personal  nature  can  be  better  under- 
stood. Such  an  explanation  would  be  quite  convincing 
if  payments  had  actually  come  to  him  from  his  own 
mother's  estate. 

We  will  only  add  that  Mrs.  Audubon,  who  seemed 
to  have  shared  her  husband's  intimate  thoughts,  ap- 
parently believed  to  the  last  in  his  high  birth.  When 
her  younger  son,  John  Woodhouse  Audubon,  lay  at  the 
point  of  death,  in  February,  1862,  she  was  summoned 
to  his  bedside,  but  reached  it  too  late  to  see  him  alive; 
upon  entering  the;  room  Mrs.  Audubon  is  said  to  have 
exclaimed:  "Oh,  my  son,  my  son!  to  think  that  you 
should  have  died  without  having  known  the  secret  of 
your  father's  early  life!"  When  asked  by  members  of 
her  family  to  what  she  then  referred,  she  turned  their 
questions  aside,  saying  only  that  such  remarks  were 
common  in  moments  of  intense  grief  and  excitement. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

EARLY  "EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE 

Methods  of  composition— "A  Wild  Horse"— Henderson  to  Philadelphia  in 
1811 — Records  of  Audubon  and  Nolte,  fellow  travelers,  compared — 
The  great  earthquakes — The  hurricane — The  outlaw — Characterization 
of  Daniel  Boone — Desperate  plight  on  the  prairie — Regulator  law  in 
action — Frontier  necessities — The  ax  married  to  the  grindstone. 

Audubon's  sketches  of  life  and  scenery  in  America, 
which  he  designated  as  "Episodes,"  were  interspersed 
in  his  Biography  of  birds  1  to  brighten  the  narrative 
and  beguile  the  reader.  Extending  to  the  number  of 
sixty,  and  dealing  mainly  with  events  between  the  years 
1808  and  1834,  they  abound  in  tales  of  adventure  and 
graphic  pictures  of  pioneer  life  which  for  their  per- 
sonal charm,  local  coloring,  and  human  interest  are 
worthy  of  high  praise.  Some  of  these  sketches  have 
been  copied  widely  and  some  have  been  translated  into 
Audubon's  native  tongue;  some  have  even  found  their 
way  into  schoolbooks.  While  they  have  deservedly  won 
the  naturalist  many  readers,  not  a  few  have  subjected 
him  to  harsh  criticism  on  the  score  of  too  vivid  coloring 
or  historical  inaccuracy,  a  fault  to  which  he  was  par- 
ticularly prone.  Whenever  Audubon  went  directly  to 
nature  to  exercise  his  pencil  or  brush  or  wrote  with  his 
subject  before  him,  he  was  truth  itself,  but  in  writing 
offhand  and  from  memory  of  past  events  he  was  wont 

1  In  the  first  three  volumes  only  of  the  Ornithological  Biography 
(Bibl.  No.  2),  being  omitted  from  the  last  two  on  account  of  the 
exigencies  of  space. 

273 


274       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

to  humor  his  fancy,  disregarding  dates  as  readily  as 
he  did  the  accents  on  French  words.  This  tendency  is 
particularly  apparent  in  the  accounts  of  some  of  his 
early  adventures  in  the  western  country,  such  as  "Louis- 
ville in  Kentucky"  (1808-10),  "The  Prairie"  (1812), 
"A  Wild  Horse"  (1811-13),  and  "The  Eccentric  Nat- 
uralist" (1818),  the  history  of  which  is  detailed  in  the 
following  chapter.  We  shall  examine  some  of  these 
stories  at  this  point,  though  their  composition  belongs  to 
a  later  period,  in  order  to  reach  a  just  conclusion  in 
regard  to  the  author's  method,  as  well  as  for  the  intrinsic 
interest  of  the  narratives  themselves. 

During  Audubon's  early  life  in  Kentucky,  as  we 
have  seen,  he  frequently  visited  the  East,  whether  in  the 
interest  of  birds  or  business,  traveling  by  way  of  the 
river  and  the  forest  roads.  Incidents  of  these  journeys 
frequently  occur  in  the  "Episodes,"  but  since  dates  com- 
monly are  omitted  and  the  order  of  events  is  liable  to  be 
blended  or  confused,  they  cannot  be  trusted  always  for 
historical  accuracy.  Thus,  "The  Wild  Horse"  episode  2 
professes  to  be  an  account  of  a  single  journey  from 
Henderson,  in  Kentucky,  to  Philadelphia  and  back 
again,  whereas  some  of  the  events  recorded  occurred  in 
reality  at  least  two  years  apart,  such  as  the  meeting  with 
Nolte  at  the  Falls  of  the  Juniata  River  in  December, 
1811,  and  the  naturalist's  return  from  Pennsylvania 
with  the  proceeds  of  "Mill  Grove,"  which  could  not  have 
been  earlier  than  1813,  the  date  of  its  sale  to  Mr.  Samuel 
Wetherill,  Junior.3 

Audubon  visited  Philadelphia  in  November,  1811, 

2  Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  iii,  p.  270. 

8  While  the  object  of  this  visit  is  not  mentioned  in  the  "Episode,"  it 
is  stated  in  the  second  biographical  sketch;  the  ambiguities  connected 
with  the  sale  of  this  farm,  in  which  others  besides  Audubon  were  then 
interested,  are  discussed  in  Chapter  XI. 


"EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE     275 

and  returned  to  Kentucky  in  December  of  that  year, 
but  whether  it  was  upon  this  or  some  other  journey 
that  he  rode  a  wild  horse  through  seven  states  in  going 
from  his  home  at  Henderson  to  the  Quaker  city,  or 
whether  such  a  journey  ever  occurred,  is  immaterial 
to  the  interest  of  the  narrative.  In  this  instance,  how- 
ever, we  have  the  advantage  of  comparing  the  notes  of 
a  fellow  traveler,  Vincent  Nolte,  then  a  merchant  at 
New  Orleans.4  First  to  follow  Audubon's  account,  as 
given  in  his  "Episode,"  we  are  told  that  he  rode  a  wild 
mustang,  named  "Barro,"  that  had  never  known  a  shoe, 
having  been  recently  captured  near  the  headwaters  of 
the  Arkansas.  In  going  east  he  diverged  from  the 
beaten  track  to  extend  his  knowledge  of  the  country  and 
of  its  bird  life.  From  Henderson  he  passed  through 
the  heart  of  Tennessee  to  Knoxville,  thence  to  Abing- 
ton,  the  Natural  Bridge,  and  Winchester  in  Virginia, 
crossed  the  corner  of  West  Virginia  to  Harper's  Ferry, 
then  to  Frederick,  Maryland,  and  on  through  Lancas- 
ter to  Philadelphia;  there,  he  said,  he  remained  four 
days,  and  returned  by  way  of  Pittsburgh,  Wheeling, 
Zanesville,  Chillicothe,  Lexington  and  Louisville,  to 
Henderson.  He  estimated  the  whole  distance  traversed 
at  "nearly  two  thousand  miles,"  and  at  a  rate  of  "not 
less  than  forty  miles  a  day."  Much  is  said  in  praise  of 
his  favorite  bay  horse,  and  its  food  and  daily  treatment 
are  duly  recorded.  This  horse  was  very  docile,  and 
would  wade  swamps,  swim  rivers,  and  clear  a  rail  fence 
like  an  elk;  corn  blades  as  well  as  corn  and  oats  entered 
into  his  daily  ration,  to  which  a  pumpkin  and  fresh  eggs, 
when  procurable,  were  occasionally  added. 

It  was  upon  his  return  journey  that  the  naturalist 
met  with  Vincent  Nolte,  who  twelve  years  later  did  his 

4  Vincent  Nolte,  Fifty  Years  in  Both  Hemispheres  (Bibl.  No.  176). 


276       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

chance  acquaintance  a  good  turn,  when  the  latter  was 
about  to  sail  for  England  in  1826.5  Nolte,  said 
Audubon, 

was  mounted  on  a  superb  horse,  for  which  he  had  paid  three 
hundred  dollars,  and  a  servant  on  horseback  led  another  as  a 
change.  I  was  then  an  utter  stranger  to  him,  and  when  I 
approached  and  praised  his  horse,  he  not  very  courteously  ob- 
served that  he  wished  I  had  as  good  a  one.  Finding  that  he  was 
going  to  Bedford  to  spend  the  night,  I  asked  him  what  hour  he 
would  get  there:  "Just  soon  enough  to  have  some  trouts  ready 
for  our  supper,  provided  you  will  join  when  you  get  there." 
I  almost  imagined  that  Barro  understood  our  conversation; 
he  pricked  up  his  ears,  and  lengthened  his  pace,  on  which  Mr. 
Nolte  caracolled  his  horse,  and  then  put  him  to  quick  trot,  but 
all  in  vain ;  for  I  reached  the  hotel  nearly  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
before  him,  ordered  the  trouts,  saw  to  the  putting  away  of  my 
good  horse,  and  stood  ready  at  the  door  to  welcome  my  com- 
panion. From  that  day  to  this  Vincent  Nolte  has  been  a  friend 
to  me. 

Audubon  added  that  they  rode  together  as  far  as 
Shippingport,  now  a  part  of  Louisville,  where  his 
brother-in-law,  Nicholas  Berthoud,  was  then  living. 

We  shall  now  follow  the  equally  circumstantial  but 
widely  divergent  account  of  this  meeting  and  the  sub- 
sequent journey  as  given  by  the  other  traveler.  Nolte 
had  sailed  from  Liverpool  in  September,  1811,  and 
landed  in  New  York  after  a  perilous  voyage  of  forty- 
eight  days.  He  had  no  servant,  but  was  accompanied 
by  a  young  Englishman,  named  Edward  Hollander, 
whom  he  had  engaged  in  a  business  capacity  while  in 
London  and  with  whom  he  was  making  his  way  to  New 
Orleans.  Hollander  had  been  sent  in  advance  to  Pitts- 

6  See  Chapter  XXI,  p.  352. 


"EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE     277 

burgh  to  purchase  two  flatboats,  for  in  addition  to  their 
horses  they  had  planned  to  carry  400  barrels  of  flour, 
from  the  sale  of  which  in  the  South  they  expected  to 
defray  the  expenses  of  their  journey.  Having  pur- 
chased a  fine  horse  in  Philadelphia,  Nolte  left  that  city 
in  December,  and  with  saddle-bags  strapped  to  his 
horse's  back,  rode  on  "entirely  alone."  He  crossed  the 
highest  point  of  the  Alleghany  ridge  at  ten  o'clock  of  a 
winter's  morning  and  later  in  the  same  day  reached  a 
small  inn  "close  by  the  Falls  of  the  Juniata  River." 
"The  landlady,"  to  quote  his  narrative,  "showed  me  into 
a  room,  and  said,  I  perhaps  would  not  mind  taking  my 
meal  with  a  strange  gentleman,  who  was  already 
there."  This  stranger,  who  immediately  struck  him  as 
"an  odd  fish,"  "was  sitting  at  a  table,  before  the  fire, 
with  a  Madras  handkerchief  wound  around  his  head, 
exactly  in  the  style  of  the  French  mariners,  or  laborers, 
in  a  seaport  town."  In  the  course  of  the  conversation 
which  then  ensued  he  declared  that  he  was  an  English- 
man, but  Nolte  was  the  last  person  to  be  deceived  on  a 
question  of  nationality  and  remarked  at  once  that  his 
speech  betrayed  him.  "He  showed  himself,"  to  quote 
our  senior  traveler  again,  "to  be  an  original  throughout, 
but  at  last  admitted  that  he  was  a  Frenchman  by  birth, 
and  a  native  of  La  Rochelle.  However,  he  had  come 
in  his  early  youth  to  Louisiana,  had  grown  up  in  the  sea- 
service,  and  had  gradually  become  a  thorough  Ameri- 
can." When  asked  how  this  account  squared  with  his 
earlier  statement,  said  Nolte,  "he  found  it  convenient 
to  reply  in  the  French  language:  'when  all  is  said  and 
done,  I  am  somewhat  cosmopolitan;  I  belong  to  every 
country/  This  man,"  to  conclude,  "who  afterwards 
won  for  himself  so  great  a  name  in  natural  history,  par- 
ticularly in  ornithology,  was  Audubon,  who,  however, 


278       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

was  by  no  means  thinking,  at  that  time,  of  occupying 
himself  with  natural  history." 

In  the  interview  as  thus  far  recorded,  Audubon  was 
clearly  chaffing  his  new  acquaintance,  for  not  one  of 
the  statements  attributed  to  him  was  true,  if  we  accept 
the  fact  of  his  French  extraction.  Nolte,  to  be  sure, 
writes  as  a  somewhat  vain  and  garrulous  man,  and  after 
a  lapse  of  forty-three  years,  but  he  professes  to  speak 
the  truth  and  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  his  nar- 
rative is  pure  invention.  Nolte  further  informs  us  that 
Audubon's  father-in-law,  Mr.  Bakewell,  "formerly  of 
Philadelphia,"  was  "then  residing  and  owning  mills  at 
Shippingport,"  which  was  not  the  case.  To  continue, 
finding  that  Audubon,  who  was  bound  for  Kentucky, 
was  a  companionable  man  and  devoted  to  art,  a  field 
which  he  had  cultivated  himself,  Nolte  proposed  that 
they  should  travel  together,  and  offered  the  naturalist 
a  berth  on  one  of  his  flatboats. 

He  thankfully  accepted  the  invitation,  and  we  left  Pitts- 
burgh in  very  cold  weather,  with  the  Monongahela  and  Ohio 
rivers  full  of  drifting  ice,  in  the  beginning  of  January,  1812.  I 
learned  nothing  further  of  his  traveling  plans  until  we  reached 
Limestone,  a  little  place  in  the  southwestern  corner  of  the  State 
of  Ohio.6  There  we  had  both  our  horses  taken  ashore,  and  I 
resolved  to  go  with  him  overland,  at  first  to  visit  the  capital, 
Lexington,  and  from  there  to  Louisville,  where  he  expected  to 
find  his  wife  and  parents-in-law.  .  .  .  We  had  hardly  finished 
our  breakfast  at  Limestone,  when  Audubon,  all  at  once,  sprang 
to  his  feet,  and  exclaimed  in  French ;  "Now  I  am  going  to  lay 
the  foundation  of  my  establishment."  So  saying,  he  took  a 
small  packet  of  address  cards  from  his  pocket,  and  some  nails 
from  his  vest,  and  began  to  nail  up  one  of  the  cards  to  the 
door  of  the  tavern,  where  we  were  taking  our  meal. 

6  Limestone  or,  as  it  was  later  called,  Maysville,  was  on  the  left  bank 
of  the  river,  in  Kentucky,  and  about  a  hundred  miles  east  of  Cincinnati. 


"EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE     279 

Later  they  rode  on  together  as  far  as  Lexington,  where 
they  appear  to  have  parted  company. 

The  discrepancies  between  these  accounts  could 
hardly  be  greater,  and  they  serve  to  illustrate  the  lib- 
erties which  Audubon  sometimes  took  with  facts  in  com- 
posing his  "Episodes."  The  travelers  met,  not  on  horse- 
back, but  at  the  supper  table  of  a  country  inn;  Nolte 
was  then  alone  and  had  but  one  horse,  while  the  greater 
part  of  the  return  journey  was  made  by  flatboat  with 
Audubon  as  his  guest ;  corn  blades,  pumpkins  and  trout 
suggest  any  other  season  than  midwinter,  with  heavy 
snows  on  the  mountains  and  rivers  choked  with  ice. 
Audubon  in  this  instance,  as  already  explained,  com- 
bined the  incidents  of  two  different  journeys  and  col- 
ored the  narrative  to  suit  his  fancy.  There  was  no  ap- 
parent motive  to  mislead  the  reader,  and  one  of  his 
readers  he  must  have  known  would  probably  be  Vincent 
Nolte,  though  he  was  not  a  subscriber  to  The  Birds  of 
America ;  Nolte  did  read  the  story,  and  was  pleased  with 
the  "flattering  acknowledgment  of  the  little  service" 
that  he  was  able  to  render  Audubon  at  that  time  as  well 
as  later  in  his  career. 

Both  travelers  felt  the  great  earthquakes  while  mak- 
ing this  journey,  but  probably  not  until  they  had  parted 
company  at  Lexington.  Audubon  has  given  a  vivid 
account  of  this  experience  in  a  characteristic  sketch,  but 
as  usual  there  are  no  dates.7  He  was  overtaken,  as  he 
said,  while  "traveling  through  the  Barrens  of  Kentucky 
...  in  the  month  of  November,"  when  he  thought  his 
terrified  "horse  was  about  to  die,  and  would  have  sprung 
from  his  back  had  a  minute  more  elapsed,  but  at  that 
instant  all  the  shrubs  and  trees  began  to  move  from 
their  very  roots;  the  ground  rose  and  fell  in  successive 

7  "The  Earthquake,"  Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  i,  p.  239. 


280       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

furrows,  like  the  ruffled  waters  of  a  lake."  For 
"November"  he  should  have  written  "January"  of  the 
year  1812.8 

This  series  of  memorable  earthquakes  was  followed 
in  1813  by  a  hurricane,  more  terrific  than  destructive, 
which  swept  the  lower  part  of  Henderson  County,  Ken- 
tucky, and  cut  a  wide  swath  through  the  virgin  forests, 
without  causing  any  loss  of  life.  Audubon's  account 
of  this  event  9  is  that  of  a  close  observer  who  escaped 
destruction  by  a  hair's  breadth  and  who  related  only 
what  he  himself  had  experienced.  Critics  inclined  to  be 
supercilious  have  complained  that  he  exaggerated  the 
importance  of  a  merely  local  event  and  stretched  the 
course  of  the  storm  some  800  miles  until  it  had  covered 
several  states.  "Sir,"  said  Waterton,  in  pointing  a  dart 
through  Audubon  to  another  target,  "this  is  really  too 
much  even  for  us  Englishmen  to  swallow,  whose  gullets 
are  known  to  be  the  largest,  the  widest,  and  the  most 
elastic,  of  any  in  the  world."  What  Audubon  said  was: 
"I  have  crossed  the  path  of  this  storm,  at  a  distance  of 
a  hundred  miles  from  the  spot  where  I  witnessed  its 
fury,  and,  again  four  hundred  miles  farther  off,  in  the 
State  of  Ohio.  Lastly,  I  observed  traces  of  its  ravages 
on  the  summits  of  the  mountains  connected  with  the 

8  These  historic  earthquakes,  which  were  most  destructive  of  life  and 
property  in  the  lower  Mississippi  Valley,  began  on  December  16,  1811, 
and  therefore  before  Audubon  and  Nolte  had  reached  the  western  country. 
They  were  noted  for  their  remarkable  frequency  and  persistence,  221 
shocks  having  been  recorded  in  a  single  week  at  Henderson,  Audubon's 
home  at  that  time;  though  their  force  was  mostly  spent  after  the  first 
three  months,  they  did  not  wholly  die  away  in  the  Ohio  Valley  until 
December  12,  1813,  when  the  last  feeble  vibration  was  recorded  by  Dr. 
Daniel  Drake  at  Cincinnati;  the  worst  shocks  at  this  point  were  experi- 
enced on  December  16,  1811,  on  January  23  and  February  7,  1812.  See 
Daniel  Drake,  Natural  and  Statistical  View  of  Cincinnati,  and  the  Miami 
Valley;  with  an  appendix,  containing  observations  on  the  late  Earth- 
quakes, (Cincinnati,  1815) ;  and  Edmund  L.  Starling,  History  of  Hender- 
son County,  Kentucky  (Bibl.  No.  186). 

8  "The    Hurricane,"    Ornithological   Biography,   vol.    i,   p.    262. 


"EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE     281 

Great  Pine  Forest  of  Pennsylvania,  three  hundred 
miles  beyond  the  place  last  mentioned.  In  all  these 
different  parts,  it  appeared  to  me  not  to  have  exceeded 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  in  breadth."  Audubon  was  doubt- 
less mistaken  in  his  hasty  inference  that  marks  of  forest 
devastation  observed  at  such  widely  separated  points 
were  due  to  the  same  storm,  but  this  would  only  illus- 
trate a  lack  of  caution  which  he  sometimes  displayed. 

A  contemporary  writer  10  declared  that  Audubon's 
account  of  "Mason,"  the  outlaw,  whose  name  we  are 
told  should  be  spelled  "Meason,"  was  altogether  fabu- 
lous; that  he  was  not  killed  by  a  regulator  party,  nor 
was  his  head  stuck  upon  a  tree  in  the  way  described.11 
The  same  critic  further  discredited  the  naturalist's  ac- 
count of  Daniel  Boone,  whom  he  had  characterized  as 
follows: 12  "The  stature  and  general  appearance  of  this 
wanderer  of  the  western  forests  approached  the  gigan- 
tic. His  chest  was  broad  and  prominent;  his  muscular 
powers  displayed  themselves  in  every  limb;  his  coun- 
tenance gave  indication  of  his  great  courage,  enter- 
prise, and  perseverance."  "Boone,"  said  this  writer, 
"was  under  six  feet  high,  probably  not  more  than  five 
feet,  ten  inches,  and  of  that  round,  compact  build,  which 
makes  little  show.  Though  very  active,  he  had  the  ap- 
pearance of  being  rather  slender  and  did  not  seem  as 
large  as  he  really  was."  In  the  case  of  the  outlaw, 
Audubon  no  doubt  retold  a  story  that  had  passed  from 
mouth  to  mouth,  but  he  later  learned  to  be  wary  of 
second-hand  information,  which  in  matters  of  natural 
history  sometimes  led  him  into  more  serious  difficulties. 
In  his  description  of  Boone  there  was  no  more  apparent 

10  James    Hall    (Bibl.    No.    123),    Western   Monthly    Magazine,   vol.    ii 
(1834). 

'"The  Regulators,"   Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  i,  p.  105. 
""Colonel  Boone,"  ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  503. 


282       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

motive  to  deceive  than  in  the  case  of  his  own  father,  to 
whom  his  imagination  had  added  nearly  half  a  foot  in 
stature.13 

When  Audubon  was  returning  from  Ste.  Gene- 
vieve  in  the  spring  of  1812,  an  incident  occurred  in 
which,  for  the  first  time  in  the  course  of  his  wanderings 
for  upwards  of  twenty-five  years,  he  felt  his  life  to  be 
in  danger  from  his  fellow  man.14  Overtaken  by  night 
on  the  prairie,  he  approached  the  hearth  fire  of  a  small 
log  cabin,  which  at  first  was  mistaken  for  the  campfire 
of  some  wandering  Indians.  On  craving  shelter,  he 
was  admitted  by  a  tall,  surly  woman  in  coarse  attire, 
who  displayed  both  an  evil  eye  and  a  repellent  counte- 
nance; but  she  offered  him  a  supper  of  venison  and 
jerked  buffalo  meat  and  bade  him  to  make  his  bed  upon 
the  floor.  When  she  espied  his  gold  watch  and  chain, 
her  demeanor  suddenly  changed  and  she  asked  to  take 
them  in  her  hand ;  she  put  the  chain  around  her  brawny 
neck  and  by  her  manner  betrayed  every  token  of  cov- 
etous desire.  Meanwhile,  a  young  Indian  stoic,  who 
was  nursing  a  recent  arrow  wound,  had  been  sitting  in 
silence  by  the  fire ;  though  he  spoke  not  a  word,  he  cast 
an  expressive  glance  in  Audubon's  direction  whenever 
the  woman's  back  was  turned,  and  having  drawn  his 
knife  from  its  scabbard,  expressed  in  pantomime  what 
the  confiding  stranger  might  eventually  expect. 

Audubon's  suspicions  were  at  last  thoroughly 
aroused.  He  asked  for  his  watch,  and  under  pretense 
of  forecasting  the  weather,  took  up  his  gun  and  saun- 
tered out  of  the  cabin ;  in  the  darkness  outside  he  slipped 
a  ball  in  each  of  the  barrels  of  his  gun,  scraped  the  edges 
of  his  flints,  renewed  the  primings,  and  returned  with  a 

13  See  Chapter  V,  p.  88. 

""The  Prairie,"  Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  i,  p.  81. 


"EPISODES"  OF  WESTERN  LIFE     283 

favorable  report  of  his  observations.  Then  laying  some 
deer  skins  on  the  floor  in  a  corner  and  calling  his  faith- 
ful dog  to  his  side,  he  lay  down  and  to  all  appearances 
was  soon  asleep.  Presently  sounds  of  approaching 
voices  were  heard,  and  at  length  two  sturdy  youths, 
who  were  evidently  the  woman's  sons,  appeared  bear- 
ing a  dead  stag,  which  they  had  slung  to  a  pole;  they 
asked  at  once  about  the  stranger,  and  called  loudly  for 
whisky.  Audubon  tapped  his  dog,  who  showed  by  eye 
and  tail  that  he  was  already  alert.  Observing  that  the 
whisky  bottle  was  paying  frequent  visits  to  the  mouths 
of  the  trio,  he  hoped  that  they  would  soon  be  reduced 
to  a  state  of  helplessness,  but  the  woman  was  seen  to 
take  in  her  hands  a  large  carving  knife  and  go  delib- 
erately outside  to  whet  its  edge  on  a  grindstone;  then, 
calling  to  her  drunken  sons,  she  asked  them  to  settle 
the  stranger  and  bade  them  do  their  bloody  work  with- 
out delay.  Audubon  cocked  both  barrels  of  his  gun, 
touched  his  dog  again,  and  was  resolved  to  shoot  at  the 
first  suspicious  move.  At  this  dramatic  moment  the 
door  suddenly  opened  and  two  burly  travelers  with 
rifles  on  their  shoulders  entered  the  cabin.  Audubon 
sprang  to  his  feet,  and  welcoming  the  strangers  with 
open  arms,  lost  no  time  in  making  known  to  them  his 
desperate  position.  No  parley  was  necessary,  for,  said 
he,  they  were  regulators,  who  then  and  there  took  the 
law  into  their  own  hands.  The  woman  and  her  sons 
were  promptly  secured,  bound,  and  left  until  morning  to 
sober  off;  they  were  then  led  into  the  woods  and  shot. 
"We  marched  them  into  the  woods  off  the  road,"  said 
Audubon,  "and  having  used  them  as  Regulators  were 
wont  to  use  such  delinquents,  we  set  fire  to  the  cabin, 
gave  all  the  skins  and  implements  to  the  young  Indian, 
and  proceeded,  well  pleased,  towards  the  settlements." 


284       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Would  you  believe,  he  added,  that  not  many  miles  from 
where  this  happened,  "and  where  fifteen  years  ago,  no 
habitation  belonging  to  civilized  man  was  expected,  and 
very  few  ever  seen,  large  roads  are  now  laid  out,  culti- 
vation has  converted  the  woods  into  fertile  fields;  tav- 
erns have  been  erected,  and  much  of  what  we  Americans 
call  comfort  is  to  be  met  with?  So  fast  does  improve- 
ment proceed  in  our  abundant  and  free  country." 

I  have  given  a  paraphrase  of  this  "Episode"  as  a 
further  illustration  of  Audubon's  tales  of  adventure. 
There  is  doubtless  a  certain  amount  of  invention,  and 
it  reads  like  the  setting  of  a  dime  novel  incident,  but  we 
see  no  reason  to  doubt  the  substantial  truth  of  either 
the  local  coloring  or  the  fact.  In  answer  to  the  question 
of  a  recent  commentator,15  "Did  remote  prairie  cabins 
have  grindstones  and  carving  knives?"  we  would  reply 
that  the  knife  and  the  ax  have  followed  man  to  the 
frontier  posts  of  civilization  everywhere,  and  without 
the  grindstone  the  ax  is  useless.  As  a  concrete  instance 
in  point,  compare  this  minute  entered  in  the  Proprie- 
tors' Book  of  Records  of  Perrytown,  afterwards  Sut- 
ton,  New  Hampshire,16  for  the  third  day  of  September, 
1770:  "Voted  a  grindstone  of  about  8  shillings  to  be 
sent  up  to  Perrystown,  for  the  use  of  the  settlers  there"; 
the  first  settler  had  entered  that  wilderness  but  three 
years  before,  and  at  the  time  this  vote  was  taken  the 
number  was  five. 

15  John  Burroughs,  John  James  Audubon   (Bibl.  No.   87),  p.  37. 
"See    History    of   Button,   New   Hampshire,   compiled   by   Augustus 
Harvey  Worthen,  pt.  1  (Concord,  1890). 


CHAPTER   XIX 

AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE 

The  "Eccentric  Naturalist"  at  Henderson— Bats  and  new  species— The 
demolished  violin — "M.  de  T.":  Constantine  Samuel  Rafinesque 
(Schmaltz) — His  precocity,  linguistic  acquirements  and  peripatetic 
habits — First  visit  to  America  and  botanical  studies — Residence  in 
Sicily,  and  fortune  made  in  the  drug  trade — Association  with  Swain- 
son — Marriage  and  embitterment — His  second  journey  to  America  ends 
in  shipwreck — Befriended — Descends  the  Ohio  in  a  flatboat — Visit  with 
Audubon,  who  gives  him  many  strange  "new  species" — Cost  to 
zoology — His  unique  work  on  Ohio  fishes — Professorship  in  Transylvania 
University — Quarrel  with  its  president  and  trustees — Return  to  Phila- 
delphia— His  ardent  love  of  nature;  his  writings  and  fatal  versatility — 
His  singular  will — His  sad  end  and  the  ruthless  disposition  of  his 
estate. 

Audubon's  humorous  sketch  of  "The  Eccentric 
Naturalist"  has  often  been  quoted,  and  it  presents  a 
picture  which  is  amusing,  however  short  of  the  truth 
it  may  fall  or  however  it  may  fail  in  doing  justice  to 
its  subject.  Though  his  real  hero  is  not  named,  no 
doubt  as  to  his  identity  has  ever  been  entertained.  This 
episode  occurred  at  Henderson  in  the  late  summer  of 
1818,  and  was  published  thirteen  years  after  in  the 
Biography  of  birds.1  Since  the  story  was  not  fully  told 
then  and  the  after-effects  wrere  productive  of  much  harsh 
criticism,  it  cannot  be  overlooked  if  we  would  do  justice 
to  both  the  writer  and  his  subject. 

When  walking  one  day  by  the  river,  to  follow  Audu- 
bon's story,  he  saw  a  man  landing  from  a  boat  with 
what  appeared  like  a  bundle  of  dried  clover  on  his  back ; 

14'The  Eccentric  Naturalist,"  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2), 
vol.  i,  p.  455. 

285 


286       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

he  concluded  from  his  appearance  that  the  stranger 
must  be  "an  original,"  a  term  which  had  been  applied 
also  to  himself.  A  meeting  followed,  and  the  stranger, 
who  had  inquired  for  Mr.  Audubon's  house,  explained 
that  he  was  a  naturalist,  and  had  come  to  see  Audubon's 
drawings  of  birds  and  plants ;  he  bore  also  a  letter  from 
a  friend,  introducing  "an  odd  fish"  which  might  "prove 
to  be  undescribed."  The  visitor  was  made  welcome  in 
Audubon's  Henderson  home,  where,  to  quote  the 
naturalist, 

at  table  his  agreeable  conversation  made  us  all  forget  his  singu- 
lar appearance.  ...  A  long  loose  coat  of  yellow  nankeen, 
much  the  worse  of  the  many  rubs  it  had  got  in  its  time,  and 
stained  all  over  with  the  juice  of  plants,  hung  loosely  about 
him  like  a  sac.  A  waistcoat  of  the  same,  with  enormous  pockets, 
and  buttoned  up  to  the  chin,  reached  below  over  a  pair  of  tight 
pantaloons,  the  lower  parts  of  which  were  buttoned  down  to 
the  ankles.  His  beard  was  as  long  as  I  have  known  mine  to  be 
during  some  of  my  peregrinations,  and  his  lank  black  hair  hung 
loosely  over  his  shoulders.  His  forehead  was  so  broad  and 
prominent  that  any  tyro  in  phrenology  would  instantly  have 
pronounced  it  to  be  the  residence  of  a  mind  of  strong  powers. 
His  words  impressed  an  assurance  of  rigid  truth,  and  as  he 
directed  the  conversation  to  the  study  of  the  natural  sciences, 
I  listened  to  him  with  as  much  delight  as  Telemachus  could  have 
listened  to  Mentor. 

All  had  retired  for  the  night  when  of  a  sudden  a 
great  uproar  was  heard  in  the  visitor's  room.  To  his  great 
astonishment,  Audubon  found  his  guest  running  about 
the  apartment  naked,  holding  the  "handle"  of  his  host's 
favorite  violin,  the  body  of  which  had  been  battered 
to  pieces  against  the  walls  in  the  attempt  to  secure  a 
number  of  fluttering  bats  which  had  entered  by  an  open 
window.  "I  stood  amazed,"  said  Audubon,  "but  he 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       287 

continued  jumping  and  running  round  and  round,  until 
he  was  fairly  exhausted,  when  he  begged  me  to  procure 
one  of  the  animals  for  him,  as  he  felt  convinced  they 
belonged  to  'a  new  species.'  Although  I  was  convinced 
to  the  contrary,  I  took  up  the  bow  of  my  demolished 
Cremona,  and  administering  a  sharp  tap  to  each  of  the 
bats  as  it  came  up,  soon  had  specimens  enough."  Other 
incidents  of  this  visit,  which  Audubon  said  lasted  three 
weeks,  are  fully  recorded.  The  eccentric  naturalist 
collected  an  abundance  of  plants,  shells,  bats  and  fishes. 
One  evening  he  failed  to  appear,  and  after  a  prolonged 
search  was  nowhere  to  be  found;  nor  were  the  Audu- 
bons  wholly  assured  of  his  safety  until  some  weeks  later 
they  received  a  letter  with  due  acknowledgments  of  their 
hospitality. 

The  "M.  de  T."  of  this  episode  was  Constantine 
Samuel  Rafinesque,  in  many  respects  the  most  singu- 
lar figure  that  has  ever  appeared  in  the  annals  of  Ameri- 
can science.  Although  young  in  years,  for  Rafinesque 
was  then  but  thirty-five,  he  was  already  old  in  experi- 
ence and  that  of  the  bitterest  sort ;  and  although  already 
known  to  many  in  both  hemispheres,  he  had  few  friends. 
It  is  certain  that  neither  Audubon  nor  anyone  else  in 
that  part  of  Kentucky  had  ever  heard  of  him  before. 

Born  in  Constantinople,  of  a  father  who  was  a 
French  merchant  from  Marseilles  and  of  a  mother  with 
a  German  name  who  by  nativity  was  Greek,  Rafinesque 
had  known  life  in  many  lands,  and  was  destined,  as  he 
said,  to  be  a  traveler  from  the  cradle  to  the  tomb.2  His 

•For  the  characterization  of  Rafinesque  given  in  the  present  chapter  I 
am  chiefly  indebted,  aside  from  his  own  writings,  to  his  two  most  sym- 
pathetic biographers,  Richard  Ellsworth  Call  and  T.  J.  Fitzpatrick,  as  well 
as  to  David  Starr  Jordan;  see  Bibliography,  Nos.  198,  228,  and  183.  Fitz- 
patrick gives  photographic  reproductions  from  Rafinesque's  exceedingly 
diversiform  and  scattered  works;  his  bibliographic  titles  extend  to  939, 
and  "Rafinesquiana"  to  134-. 


288       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

first  voyage,  made  with  his  parents  on  their  return  to 
France,  by  way  of  Scutari  in  Asia,  Smyrna,  and  Malta, 
led  to  his  first  discovery,  when  he  was  a  year  old,  for  he 
was  able  to  announce  that  "infants  are  not  subject  to 
sea-sickness."  At  eleven  he  read  Latin  and  collected 
plants;  at  thirteen  he  wrote  his  first  scientific  paper, 
"Notes  on  the  Apennines,"  which  he  had  seen  when 
traveling  from  Leghorn  to  Genoa.  His  father,  who 
set  out  for  China  in  1791,  fell  in  with  pirates,  but  man- 
aged to  reach  America;  he  died  of  the  yellow  fever  in 
Philadelphia  in  1793.  To  escape  the  Reign  of  Terror  in 
France,  Rafinesque's  mother  fled  with  her  children  to 
Italy,  where  four  years  were  passed  at  Leghorn.  There 
Constantine  studied  with  private  tutors,  but  his  educa- 
tion was  never  formal  and  he  was  allowed  to  follow 
his  omnivorous  tastes,  reading,  as  he  said,  ten  times 
more  than  was  taught  in  the  schools.  His  writings  are 
mainly  in  French,  Italian,  and  English,  and  his  facility 
with  languages  was  no  doubt  remarkable,  even  if  we 
discount  his  egotized  estimate  of  his  own  attainments: 
"I  have  undertaken  to  read  the  Latin  and  Greek,  as 
well  as  the  Hebrew,  Sanskrit,  Chinese,  and  fifty  other 
languages,  as  I  felt  the  need  or  inclination  to  study 
them." 

In  1802  Rafinesque  was  sent  with  his  brother  to 
America  and  became  a  shipper's  clerk  at  Philadelphia, 
where  he  spent  all  of  his  spare  time  in  the  study  of 
nature,  plants  being  his  first  and  greatest  love.  Here 
he  was  befriended  by  Dr.  Benjamin  Rush,  and  during 
this  period  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  many  pioneer 
naturalists  in  the  United  States.  In  1805  the  offer  of 
a  lucrative  situation  in  Sicily  lured  him  back  to  the  Old 
World  and  to  a  country  already  known  to  him.  There 
he  soon  discovered  the  medicinal  squill,  of  ancient  re- 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE        289 

pute  and  thought  to  be  an  antidote,  which  in  the  form 
of  syrup  was  long  the  bane  of  childhood ;  this  and  other 
medicinal  drugs  he  exported  to  the  European  and 
American  markets  in  such  quantities  that  before  the 
secret  of  his  trade  became  known  to  the  jealous  Sicil- 
ians, he  had  reaped  from  it,  in  conjunction  with  his 
other  enterprises,  a  small  fortune.  During  the  ten  years 
that  were  spent  in  Sicily  we  find  him  the  manager  of  a 
successful  whisky  distillery,  the  chancellor  or  secretary 
of  the  American  Consulate  at  Palermo,  editor,  writer, 
and  correspondent  of  learned  men  in  Europe,  as  well  as 
traveler  and  explorer  in  every  part  of  the  island,  which 
he  proposed  to  monograph  with  all  of  its  contents.  At 
Palermo  Rafinesque  met  the  English  naturalist, 
William  Swainson,  his  lifelong  correspondent;  together 
they  tramped  over  the  island  and  together  they  worked 
for  a  number  of  years  on  the  fishes  of  the  western  coast.3 
Swainson,  who  became  the  friend  of  Audubon,  was  one 
of  the  few  who  later  defended  Rafinesque. 

Rafinesque  espoused  a  Sicilian  woman  of  the  Cath- 
olic faith,  and  had  by  her  two  children,  of  whom  a 
daughter  lived  to  maturity;  this  experience  seems  to 
have  embittered  him  against  the  sex,  for  no  other 
woman  excepting  his  mother,  to  whom  his  lAfe  of 
Travels  was  dedicated,  was  ever  mentioned  in  his  writ- 
ings, and  this  one  was  disinherited  in  his  extraordinary 
will.  Through  fear  of  being  drafted  into  the  French 
wars,  he  assumed  for  a  time  his  mother's  family  name  of 
Schmaltz,  and  finally  left  Sicily  in  disgust;  taking  with 
him  his  fortune  and  "fifty  boxes  of  personal  goods," 

*  "At  Palermo,"  said  Swainson,  "I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  .  .  . 
Rafinesque  Schmaltz,  whose  first  name  is  familiar  to  most  zoologists.  In 
the  society  of  such  congenial  minds,  I  passed  many  happy  hours,  and 
made  many  delightful  excursions  ...  by  the  inducement  of  the  latter,  I 
was  led  to  investigate  the  ichthyology  of  the  western  coast."  (Sec 
Bibliography,  No.  170.) 


290       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

he  set  out  again  for  America  in  1815.  Sicily,  he  de- 
clared in  epigram,  offered  "a  fruitful  soil,  a  delightful 
climate,  excellent  productions,  perfidious  men,  deceitful 


women." 


This  second  voyage  to  the  New  World  began  late 
in  July  but  did  not  end  until  100  days  later,  when,  on 
the  night  of  November  2,  his  ship  ran  on  the  Race  Rocks 
near  New  London,  at  the  western  end  of  Long  Island 
Sound,  and  eventually  went  down  within  sight  of  land 
with  all  his  possessions.     "I  had  lost  everything,"  he 
said,  "my  fortune,  my  share  of  the  cargo,  my  collec- 
tions and  labors  for  twenty  years  past,  my  books,  my 
manuscripts,  my  drawings,   even  my  clothes  ...  all 
that  I  possessed,  except  some  scattered  funds,  and  the 
insurance  ordered  in  England  for  one  third  of  the  value 
of  my  goods."    "I  have  found  men,"  he  continued,  "vile 
enough  to  laugh  without  shame  at  my  misfortune,  in- 
stead of  condoling  with  me !    But  I  have  met  also  with 
friends  who  deplored  my  loss,  and  helped  me  in  need." 
One  of  these  friends  was  Dr.  Samuel  L.  Mitchell  of 
New  York,  who  had  given  a  helping  hand  to  Audubon,4 
and  it  was  probably  through  him  that  Rafinesque  ob- 
tained a  position  as  private  tutor  in  a  family  living  on 
the  Hudson.    Traveling  up  and  down  the  country,  col- 
lecting objects  in  natural  history,  writing,  with  frus- 
trated attempts  at  business,  occupied  a  number  of  the 
following  years;  meanwhile  he  had  aided  in  founding 
the  Lyceum  of  New  York  and  had  become  a  member  of 
the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society.     At  Philadel- 
phia he  found  another  friend  in  Mr.  John  O.  Clifford, 
of  Lexington,  Kentucky,  who  encouraged  him  to  visit 
the  West,  and  in  the  spring  of  1818  he  descended  the 
Ohio  in  an  "ark"  in  company  with  several  others  who 

4  See  Vol.  I,  pp.  171  and  336. 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       291 

had  joined  him  in  the  enterprise.  At  Shippingport  he 
was  welcomed  by  the  Tarascon  brothers,  flour  mer- 
chants, formerly  of  Marseilles  and  Philadelphia,  and  it 
was  through  them,  possibly,  that  he  first  heard  of  Audu- 
bon's  drawings  of  birds. 

Such  was  the  "odd  fish"  who  a  little  later  greeted 
Audubon  on  the  river  bank  at  Henderson.  Had  Audu- 
bon  known  the  true  history  of  his  visitor  either  then  or 
at  a  later  time,  he  would  not,  we  believe,  have  held  him 
up  to  ridicule  in  the  "Episode"  quoted  above,  and  could 
he  have  foreseen  the  unpleasant  consequences  that 
ensued,  his  conduct  would  assuredly  have  been  different. 
A  part  of  the  episode,  which  Audubon  does  not  relate, 
was  supplied  by  another  naturalist  at  a  much  later  day.5 
Audubon,  it  seems,  was  at  that  time  a  good  deal  of  a 
wag,  and  whether  to  vent  his  dislike  of  species-mongers, 
to  avenge  the  loss  of  his  violin,  or  to  gratify  some  spirit 
of  mischief,  he  played  upon  the  credulity  of  his  guest, 
in  a  way  that  could  be  deemed  hardly  creditable,  in 
giving  him  detailed  descriptions  and  even  supplying 
him  with  drawings  of  sundry  impossible  fishes  and  mol- 
lusks.  Rafinesque  took  the  bait  eagerly,  duly  noted 
down  everything  on  the  spot,  and,  what  was  more  un- 

5  See  David  Starr  Jordon  (Bibl.  No.  183),  Popular  Science  Monthly, 
vol.  xxix  (1886).  "The  true  story  of  this  practical  joke  was  told  me 
by  the  venerable  Dr.  Kirtland,  who  in  turn  received  it  from  Dr.  Bach- 
man;"  the  latter,  I  might  add,  was  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  the 
"Sage  of  Rockport"  after  a  visit  at  his  home  near  Cleveland  in  the 
summer  of  1852.  In  the  private  notebooks  of  Rafinesque  copies  of  Audu- 
bon's  drawings  are  still  to  be  seen,  and  "a  glance  at  these,"  said  Dr.  Jordon, 
"is  sufficient  to  show  the  extent  to  which  science  through  him  has  been 
victimized." 

Audubon  was  also  responsible  for  a  number  of  extraordinary  "new 
species"  of  birds,  the  most  notorious  of  which  was  the  Scarlet-headed  Swal- 
low, of  which  Rafinesque  published  the  following  account  in  1820:  "Hirundo 
phenicephala.  Head  scarlet,  back  gray,  belly  white,  bill  and  feet  black. 
A  fine  and  rare  swallow  seen  only  once  by  Mr.  Audubon  near  Henderson, 
Kentucky  .  .  ."  See  Samuel  N.  Rhoads,  "Constantine  S.  Rafinesque  as  an 
Ornithologist,"  Cassinia,  No.  XV  (Philadelphia,  1911). 


292       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

fortunate  for  American  zoology,  a  year  later  began  to 
publish  the  results.  The  fictitious  species  of  fish,  to  the 
number  of  ten,  "communicated  by  Mr.  Audubon,"  first 
appeared  as  a  series  of  articles  in  a  short-lived  and  long 
forgotten  western  magazine,6  but  in  1820  they  were 
gathered  into  a  little  volume  7  now  considered  so  quaint 
and  rare  that  it  has  been  reproduced  in  its  entirety.  In 
this  pioneer  work  on  the  ichthyology  of  the  Ohio  River 
and  the  great  Middle  West,  111  kinds  of  American 
fresh-water  fishes  are  briefly  described.  Those  ten  "new 
species,"  representing  apparently  a  number  of  new 
genera,  "so  like  and  yet  so  unlike  to  anything  yet 
known,"  long  remained  a  stumbling  block  to  American 
zoologists;  naturally  they  tended  to  discredit  the  work 
of  Rafinesque. 

6  The  Western  Review  and  Miscellaneous  Magazine,  Lexington,  1819-20. 

7  Ichthyologia   Ohiensis,  or  Natural  History   of   the  Fishes  inhabiting 
the  River  Ohio  and  its  tributary  Streams,  preceded  by  a  physical  descrip- 
tion of  the   Ohio   and  its   branches.     By   C.   S.   Rafinesque,   Professor  of 
Botany  and  Natural   History  in  Transylvania  University,  Author  of  the 
Analysis  of  Nature,  &c.  &c.     Member  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical 
Society  of  New- York,  the  Historical  Society  of  New- York,  the  Lyceum  of 
Natural    History    of    New- York,    the    Academy    of    Natural    Sciences    of 
Philadelphia,   the   American   Antiquarian   Society,   the   Royal   Institute   of 
Natural  Sciences  of  Naples,  the  Italian  Society  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  the 
Medical  Societies  of  Lexington  and  Cincinnati,  &c.  &c. 

"The  art  of  seeing  well,  or  of  noticing  and  distinguishing  with  accuracy 
the  objects  which  we  perceive,  is  a  high  faculty  of  the  mind,  unfolded  in 
few  individuals,  and  despised  by  those  who  can  neither  acquire  it,  nor 
appreciate  its  results." 

Lexington,  Kentucky:  printed  for  the  author  by  W.  G.  Hunt.  (Price 
one  dollar.)  (Pp.  1-90.  Lexington,  1820.) 

Fitzpatrick  (see  Bibliography,  No.  228)  gives  a  list  of  14  copies  of 
this  work,  the  whereabouts  of  which  are  known;  we  can  add  another 
from  the  library  of  Dr.  Jared  P.  Kirtland,  now  in  the  collections  of 
Western  Reserve  University;  it  is  bound  up  with  Dr.  Kirtland's  notebook 
on  birds  and  fishes,  and  labeled  "Scraps  of  Natural  History.  My  Note 
Book;"  a  written  notice  on  the  inside  of  the  cover,  imploring  the  finder 
to  return  the  volume  to  its  owner  if  lost,  is  signed  by  Dr.  Kirtland  and 
dated  "Cleveland,  O.,  Oct.  16th,  1839."  Probably  fewer  than  20  original 
copies  of  the  work  now  exist.  It  was  reproduced  in  a  limited  edition,  with  a 
sketch  of  Rafinesque's  life  and  works  by  Richard  Ellsworth  Call,  published 
by  the  Burrows  Brothers'  Company  of  Cleveland  in  1899. 


EARLY    UNPUBLISHED    DRAWINGS    OF    AMERICAN    BIRDS:    ABOVE,       L  ALCION    DA.MEK- 

1QUE   SKPTKNTRIONAI.E   BUFFON.       KING   FISIIER.       CHUTE   DE    L'oiIIO  JULY    15, 

1808.       BELTED    KING    FISIIER    A.    W.-J.    A.    ALCEDO    ALCION.       DRAWN    BY 

J.    J.    AUDUBON.       NO.    110;"    BELOW,    "PASSENGER    PIGEON A.    W. 

COI.UMBA    HUGH  VIOIUA.       CHUTE    DE    l.'oiIIO.       DECF.MB.    11, 

1809.        12    PEN  NFS     A     LA     QUEUE     TRES    ETAGEE. 

APPELE    ICI    WILD    PIGEON.       J.    AUDUBON. 

NO.    109." 


Published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y.  Jeanes. 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       293 

As  a  specimen  of  these  spurious  fish  stories,  which 
were  previously  published  in  both  America  and  Europe, 
we  reproduce  a  part  of  Rafmesque's  description  of  the 
"91st.  Species.  Devil-Jack  Diamond-fish.  Litholepis 
adamantinus" : 

This  may  be  reckoned  the  wonder  of  the  Ohio.  It  is  only 
found  as  far  up  as  the  falls,  and  probably  lives  also  in  the 
Mississippi.  I  have  seen  it,  but  only  at  a  distance,  and  have 
been  shown  some  of  its  singular  scales.  Wonderful  stories  are 
related  concerning  this  fish,  but  I  have  principally  relied  upon 
the  description  and  figure  given  me  by  Mr.  Audubon.  Its 
length  is  from  4  to  10  feet.  One  was  caught  which  weighed 
four  hundred  pounds.  It  lies  sometimes  asleep  or  motionless 
on  the  surface  of  the  water,  and  may  be  mistaken  for  a  log 
or  a  snag.  It  is  impossible  to  take  it  in  any  other  way  than 
with  the  seine  or  a  very  strong  hook,  the  prongs  of  the  gig 
cannot  pierce  the  scales  which  are  as  hard  as  flint,  and  even 
proof  against  lead  balls !  Its  flesh  is  not  good  to  eat.  It  is  a 
voracious  fish:  Its  vulgar  names  are  Diamond  fish,  (owing  to  its 
scales  being  cut  like  diamonds)  Devil  fish,  Jack  fish,  Gar  jack, 
&c.  .  .  .  The  whole  body  covered  with  large  stone  scales  laying 
in  oblique  rows,  they  are  conical,  pentagonal,  and  pentaedral 
with  equal  sides,  from  half  an  inch  to  one  inch  in  diameter, 
brown  at  first,  but  becoming  of  the  colour  of  turtle  shell  when 
dry :  they  strike  fire  with  steel !  and  are  ball  proof ! 

While  we  cannot  defend  Audubon  in  his  treatment 
of  Rafinesque,  it  would  be  hardly  fair  to  judge  such 
incidents  wholly  in  the  light  of  after  events,  for,  as  our 
narrative  will  show,  it  is  unlikely  that  he  ever  saw 
Rafinesque  or  heard  of  him  again  until  long  years  after 
this  incident,  certainly  not  until  after  his  "Episode" 
was  published  in  183 1.8  Rafinesque  evidently  enjoyed 

"Probably  not  before  October  of  that  year,  when  Audubon  first 
met  John  Bachman,  at  Charleston,  South  Carolina. 


294       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

this  sketch  of  himself,  for  he  gave  unstinted  praise  t< 
work  in  which  it  was  published.  As  late  as  1832,  \ 
the  appearance  of  The  Birds  of  America  seems  to 
stimulated  him  to  even  more  grandiose  conceptior 
his  own  merits  than  was  usual,  he  declared  that  his 
coveries  were  counted  by  the  thousand,  and  that  he 
traveled  twenty  thousand  miles,  always  collecting 
drawing.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  drawing  was  a  it 
which  nature  had  unequivocally  denied  him,  it  is  ii 
esting  to  read  this  boast  that  an  unfriendly  critic  c 
forth:  "My  illustrations  of  30  years'  travels,  with  2 
figures  will  soon  begin  to  be  published,  and  be  sup< 
to  those  of  my  friend  Audubon,  in  extent  and  var 
if  not  equal  in  beauty.  I  shall  study  and  write  as 
as  I  live,  in  spite  of  all  such  mean  attempts  againsl 
reputation  and  exertions,  trusting  in  the  justice  of 
eral  men." 9 

After  leaving  Audubon  at  Henderson  in  the  s 
mer  of  1818,  Rafinesque  passed  down  the  Ohio  ink 
Mississippi,  pausing  only  to  pay  his  respects  at 
famous  communistic  settlement  of  New  Harmony 
the  mouth  of  the  Wabash  in  Indiana,  then  the  al 
of  Thomas  Say,  David  Dale  Owen,  and  Charles 
Sueur,  all  of  whom  have  left  bright  and  honored  n* 
in  the  annals  of  American  science.  He  eventually 
turned  to  Philadelphia  by  way  of  Lexington,  Kentu 
where  he  was  induced  to  settle  and  teach  natural 
tory  and  the  modern  languages  in  the  Transylv 
University,  at  that  time  the  most  important  sea 
learning  in  the  West.  After  closing  up  his  busi 

9  Reply  to  a  criticism  of  G.  W.  Featherstonhaugh  (The  Monthly  A 
can  Journal  of  Geological  Science),  in  Rafinesque's  Atlantic  Journa 
Friend  of  Knowledge,  No.  3,  p.  113  (Philadelphia,  1832).  Rafinesque 
sionally  spoke  of  meeting  "my  friend  Audubon,"  who,  he  declared 
invited  him  to  join  his  expedition  to  Florida  in  1831-32. 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       295 

affairs  in  Philadelphia,  Rafinesque  entered  upon  his 
new  labors  at  Lexington  in  the  autumn  of  1819.  He 
was  probably  the  first  teacher  of  these  subjects  west 
of  the  Alleghanies,  and  certainly  the  first  in  that  section 
of  the  country  to  use  the  present  object  method  in  the 
elucidation  of  natural  history.  The  lot  of  a  pioneer  in 
education  has  never  been  a  sinecure,  and  the  post  which 
Rafinesque  then  filled  was  not  a  "chair"  but  a  hard 
"settee."  In  those  days  the  classics  were  in  the  saddle 
and  "rode  mankind,"  while  the  natural  sciences,  when 
tolerated  at  all,  were  given  short  shrift;  yet  this  eccen- 
tric foreigner  held  his  position  for  seven  years  and  ac- 
complished an  extraordinary  amount  of  work.  As 
usual  he  spread  his  energies  over  the  whole  field  of 
knowledge,  lecturing,  writing  and  publishing  on  almost 
every  subject,  but  concentrating  upon  none.  Mean- 
while, he  roamed  far  and  wide  and  made  extensive  col- 
lections. 

While  at  the  Transylvania  University  Rafinesque 
seems  to  have  applied  for  the  master  of  arts'  degree,  but 
was  at  first  refused,  as  he  said,  "because  I  had  not  stud- 
ied Greek  in  a  college,  although  I  knew  more  languages 
than  all  of  the  American  colleges  united,  but  it  was 
granted  at  last;  but  the  Doctor  of  medicine  was  not 
granted,  because  I  would  not  superintend  anatomical 
dissections." 

One  of  his  many  projects,  as  meritorious  as  it  was  im- 
practical, at  that  time,  was  a  Botanic  Garden  with  a 
Library  and  Museum  for  Lexington,  which  was  then 
but  a  small  village;  though  land  was  actually  secured 
and  a  start  in  tree  planting  begun,  the  project  of  course 
came  to  nothing  and  had  to  be  abandoned.  Rafinesque 
also  invented,  as  he  believed,  the  present  coupon  system 
of  issuing  bonds,  the  "Divitial  Invention,"  as  he  called 


296       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

it;  in  1825  he  set  out  for  Washington  in  order  to  se» 
his  patent  rights,  but  his  journey  and  idea  never  broi 
him  any  returns.  On  the  contrary,  the  incident  mai 
the  culmination  of  his  troubles  with  the  president  of 
University  and  its  governing  board,  whom  he  seem 
have  constantly  nettled  by  his  independent  ways 
roaming  habits.  Upon  returning  from  Washingtoi 
found  that  Dr.  Holley,  who,  he  said,  "hated  and 
spised  the  natural  sciences"  and  wished  to  drive  him 
altogether,  had  broken  into  his  rooms  during  his 
sence,  and  had  "given  one  to  the  students,  and  thr« 
all  my  effects,  books  and  collections  in  a  heap  in 
other,"  besides  depriving  him  of  certain  other  p] 
leges.  "I  took  lodgings,"  he  continued,  "in  town 
carried  there  all  my  effects ;  thus  leaving  the  college  i 
curses  on  it  and  Holley;  who  were  both  reached  by  tl 
soon  after,  since  he  died  next  year  at  sea  of  the  ye] 
fever,  caught  at  New  Orleans ;  having  been  driven  f : 
Lexington  by  public  opinion;  and  the  College  has  I 
burnt  in  1828  with  all  its  contents." 

After  this  unpleasant  experience  Rafinesque 
turned  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  spent  the  last 
saddest  part  of  his  checkered  career.  His  insisl 
ideas,  which  were  undoubtedly  the  index  of  an  un 
anced  mind,  increased,  especially  his  mania  for  desc 
ing  "new  species"  of  animals  and  plants;  this  im 
perverted  everything  that  he  wrote,  especially  tow 
the  end  of  his  life,  and  made  him  a  thorn  in  the  sid< 
every  naturalist  who  tried  to  verify  his  work.  A  n 
conformist  and  a  respecter  of  no  authority  but  his  c 
is  never  popular,  though  a  part  of  the  antagonism  wl 
Rafinesque  aroused  was  due  to  the  conservatism  of 
age.  He  boldly  advocated  organic  evolution  when 
most  the  whole  world  believed  that  species  were  fi: 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       297 

and  unchangeable  things,  and  in  many  other  respects 
was  fifty  years  ahead  of  his  time ;  but  nothing  was  ever 
carefully  worked  out  in  his  fertile  mind,  with  the  conse- 
quence that  the  world  paid  no  heed  to  his  trude  and 
undigested  ideas. 

The  great  mass  of  Rafinesque's  books  and  mono- 
graphs, his  "tracts,"  broadsides,  and  ephemeral  papers 
of  all  sorts,  extending  to  nearly  a  thousand  titles,  must 
have  gone  into  paper  rags,  when  not  used  to  kindle 
fires,  for  he  was  generous  in  their  distribution,  and  they 
are  now  exceedingly  rare.  He  touched  nearly  every- 
thing, it  is  true,  but  little  that  he  touched,  especially 
in  this  later  period  of  his  life,  did  he  ever  truly  orna- 
ment. His  best  pioneer  work,  in  the  opinion  of  com- 
petent students,  was  that  done  upon  the  fishes  of  Sicily 
and  the  natural  history  of  the  Ohio  Valley ;  his  Medical 
Flora,  in  two  volumes  (1828  and  1830) ,  is  also  admitted 
to  have  possessed  real  value;  but  his  writings  are  now 
sought  after  as  literary  or  scientific  curiosities,  and  as 
such  they  are  unique. 

No  doubt  Rafinesque  was  often  treated  unjustly, 
either  through  ignorance  or  intent,  while  many  natural- 
ists were  exasperated  by  the  barbed  arrows  which  he 
shot  into  the  air  or  direct  at  the  mark.  Others  through 
sheer  inability  to  follow  him  gave  up  the  attempt,  one 
writer  10  saying  that  such  an  attitude  was  justified  when 
it  appeared  that  he  had  made  six  species  out  of  one, 
not  to  speak  of  several  different  genera  and  two  sub- 
families. If  anyone  still  believes  that  Rafinesque  has 
been  misjudged,  says  Giinther,11  let  him  read  his  letters 
to  Swainson,  from  1809  to  1840,  fifty-three  in  number, 


10  Isaac  Lea,  in  A  Synopsis  of  the  Family  of  Naiades,  pp.  8-9  (Phila- 
delphia, 1836). 

"See  Bibliography,  No.  204. 


298       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

covering  178  closely  written  quarto  or  folio  pages,  now 
in  possession  of  the  Linnsean  Society  of  London. 
"Rafinesque,"  continues  this  critic,  "was  a  man  deeply 
to  be  commiserated,  not  merely  on  account  of  the  un- 
fortunate circumstances  which  left  him  in  his  youth  to 
himself,  without  teacher  or  guide,  but  still  more  on  the 
ground  of  that  natural  disposition  by  which  his  uni- 
versal failure  in  life  was  brought  about.  He  was  pos- 
sessed of  a  feverish  restlessness  which  entirely  disquali- 
fied him  from  serious  study  of  any  of  the  multitudinous 
subjects  which  attracted  his  mind  in  rapid  succession." 

Rafinesque,  bereft  of  friends  and  fortune,  unknown 
even  to  his  neighbors,  by  whom  he  seems  to  have  been 
regarded  as  a  harmless  herb  doctor,  was  left  to  struggle 
on  alone,  without  recognition  and  without  sympathy  or 
support.  Reduced  finally  to  abject  poverty,  he  con- 
cocted and  sold  medicines  which  were  advertised  much 
like  quack  remedies  at  the  present  day,  especially  his 
"Pulmel,"  which  without  a  doubt  he  thought  had  cured 
him  of  the  pulmonary  consumption.  To  advertise  this 
he  wrote  a  little  treatise,  hoping  to  realize  something 
from  its  sale  and  at  the  same  time  to  avoid  any  undue 
appearance  of  empyricism. 

Toward  the  very  end  of  his  life,  Rafinesque  pro- 
jected a  savings  bank,  and,  strangely  enough,  this  seems 
to  have  been  a  success,  though  just  how  is  not  clear, 
since  it  both  borrowed  and  loaned  money  at  six  per 
cent.  He  had  already  attempted  to  secure  rights  on  a 
"steam-plough,"  a  "submarine  boat,"  "incombustible 
houses,"  and  similar  novelties  which  abler  inventors  have 
later  perfected.  For  a  long  time  he  led  the  life  of  a 
perfect  recluse  in  a  garret  in  a  poor  quarter  of  Phila- 
delphia, in  the  midst  of  his  collections,  his  books  and 
his  manuscripts,  never  the  world  forgetting  but  ever  by 


AUDUBON  AND  RAFINESQUE       299 

the  world  forgot.  There,  in  the  direst  misery,  he  died 
in  1840,  at  the  age  of  fifty-six,  without  a  word  of  cheer 
or  a  tear  of  regret.  His  body  was  barely  saved  from 
the  dissecting  table  and  given  decent  burial  through  the 
loyalty  and  promptitude  of  one  of  his  few  remaining 
friends,  Dr.  William  Mease,  who  with  undertaker 
Bringhurst,  broke  into  the  room  where  his  body  lay  and 
let  it  down  through  a  window  by  ropes.12  Even  his  will 
was  ruthlessly  violated,  and  all  of  his  effects,  in  eight 
dray-loads,  were  hurried  off  to  the  public  auction  rooms 
and  sold  in  bargain  lots,  his  books  and  all  else  bringing 
but  a  mere  pittance,  not  even  enough  to  pay  his  land- 
lord and  the  administrator  of  his  estate. 

Thus  died  the  "eccentric  naturalist"  whom  Audubon 
had  portrayed,  and  for  whom  the  world  in  general  had 
shown  scant  sympathy.  Rafinesque,  nevertheless,  pos- 
sessed a  mind  of  extraordinary  acumen  and  an  energy 
and  versatility  little  short  of  marvelous.  He  dipped 
into  every  field  of  knowledge,  looking  for  precious 
metal,  but  much  that  he  brought  to  the  surface  was 
dross.  His  restless  versatility  alone  would  probably 
have  ruined  him,  for  nothing  short  of  an  analysis  of 
the  globe  with  all  of  its  contents  would  have  satisfied 
his  ambitious  spirit.  His  was  the  ardor  of  the  traveler 
and  the  explorer,  with  a  passionate  love  for  nature  sel- 
dom equaled,  but  without  the  incentive  and  the  patience 
of  the  investigator  or  a  balance-wheel  in  the  judgment. 
His  ambition  in  early  life  was  to  become  the  greatest 
naturalist  of  his  age ;  had  his  early  training  and  environ- 


M  The  landlord,  to  whom  Rafinesque  had  been  in  arrears  for  rent,  had 
locked  his  body  in  the  room  and  refused  permission  for  its  burial,  think- 
ing to  find  a  market  for  it  in  one  of  the  medical  schools  of  the  city. 
Rafinesque  was  buried  in  a  little  churchyard,  then  outside  of  the  limits 
of  the  city,  known  as  Ronaldson's  cemetery,  now  at  Ninth  and  Catharine 
Streets.  See  .Call  and  Fitzpatrick,  Bibliography,  Nos.  198  and  228. 


300       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ment  been  suited  to  his  needs,  and  had  fortune  favored 
him  more  consistently  with  her  smiles,  this  ambition 
possibly  might  have  been  realized,  but  we  suspect  that 
in  this  case  nature  would  have  proved  stronger  than 
nurture,  and  that  he  would  have  been  Rafinesque  to 
the  end. 


CHAPTER   XX 

AUDUBON'S  ^NEID,  1819-1824:  WANDERINGS  THROUGH 
THE  WEST  AND  SOUTH 

Pivotal  period  in  Audubon's  career — His  spur  and  balance-wheel — Resort 
to  portraiture — Taxidermist  in  the  Western  Museum — Settles  in  Cin- 
cinnati— History  of  his  relations  with  Dr.  Drake — Decides  to  make  his 
avocation  his  business — Journey  down  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi  with 
Mason  and  Cummings — Experiences  of  travel  without  a  cent  of  capital — 
Life  in  New  Orleans — Vanderlyn's  recommendations — Original  draw- 
ings— Chance  meeting  with  Mrs.  Pirrie,  and  engagement  as  tutor  at 
"Oakley" — Enchantments  of  West  Feliciana — "My  lovely  Miss  Pirrie" — 
The  jealous  doctor — Famous  drawing  of  the  rattlesnake — Leaves  St. 
Francisville  and  is  adrift  again  in  New  Orleans — Obtains  pupils  in 
drawing  and  is  Joined  by  his  family — Impoverished,  moves  to  Natchez, 
and  Mrs.  Audubon  becomes  a  governess — Injuries  to  his  drawings — 
The  labors  of  years  destroyed  by  rats — Teaching  in  Tennessee — Parting 
with  Mason — First  lessons  in  oils — Mrs.  Audubon's  school  at  "Beech- 
woods" — Painting  tour  fails — Stricken  at  Natchez — At  the  Percys' 
plantation — Walk  to  Louisville — Settles  at  Shippingport. 

Audubon's  failure  at  Henderson  was  the  crucial 
turning  point  in  his  career.  For  the  five  years  that 
immediately  followed  he  led  a  peripatetic  existence  in 
the  southern  and  western  states,  seldom  tarrying  long 
at  one  point,  often  leaving  his  family  for  months  at  a 
time,  living  from  hand  to  mouth,  but  ever  bent  on  per- 
fecting those  products  of  his  hand  and  brain,  his  life 
studies  of  American  birds  and  plants. 

At  this  crisis  Audubon  could  have  accomplished 
nothing  but  for  the  intelligent  devotion  of  his  capable 
wife.  Generous,  emotional,  inclined  to  be  self-indul- 
gent, Audubon  needed  both  the  example  and  the  spur 
of  a  strong  character  such  as  his  wife  possessed,  and  at 
this  time  Lucy  Audubon  furnished  both  the  motive 

301 


302       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

power  and  the  balance-wheel  that  were  requisite  for  the 
development  of  her  husband's  genius.  Without  her 
zeal  and  self-sacrificing  devotion  the  world  would  never 
have  heard  of  Audubon.  His  budding  talents  event- 
ually would  have  been  smothered  in  some  backwoods 
town  of  the  Middle  West  or  South.  For  the  space  of 
nearly  twelve  years,  Mrs.  Audubon,  now  as  the  head 
of  a  small  private  school,  now  as  a  governess  in  some 
friendly  family  who  appreciated  her  worth,  practically 
assumed  the  responsibility  for  the  support  and  educa- 
tion of  their  children  in  order  that  her  husband's  hands 
might  be  free,  and  with  her  hard-earned  savings  was 
able  to  aid  him  materially  in  the  prosecution  of  his 
labors.  When  relatives  or  friends  upbraided  him  for 
not  entering  upon  some  form  of  lucrative  trade,  she 
recognized  his  genius  and  always  came  to  his  support, 
being  fully  persuaded  that  he  was  destined  to  become 
one  of  the  great  workers  of  the  world.  Whatever  oth- 
ers may  have  said  or  done  at  that  time,  both  Audubon 
and  his  wife  were  confident  of  the  ultimate  success  of 
his  mission.  In  short,  the  work  in  which  the  naturalist 
was  engaged  became  a  family  interest,  in  which  every 
member  was  destined  sooner  or  later  to  bear  a  part. 

Audubon  recalled  a  somber  incident  of  this  time 
which  he  thought  might  furnish  a  lesson  to  mankind, 
and  he  shall  relate  it  in  his  own  words : 

After  our  dismal  removal  from  Henderson  to  Louisville, 
one  morning  when  all  of  us  were  sadly  desponding,  I  took  you 
both,  Victor  and  John,  from  Shippingport  to  Louisville.  I  had 
purchased  a  loaf  of  bread  and  some  apples ;  before  you  reached 
Louisville  you  were  hungry,  and  by  the  river  side  we  sat  down 
and  ate  our  scanty  meal.  On  that  day  the  world  was  with  me 
as  a  blank,  and  my  heart  was  sorely  heavy,  for  scarcely  had  I 
enough  to  keep  my  dear  ones  alive ;  and  yet  through  those  dark 


AUDUBON'S  ^ENEID  303 

days  I  was  being  led  to  the  development  of  the  talents  I  loved, 
and  which  have  brought  so  much  enjoyment  to  us  all.   .  .  . 

At  Shippingport  Audubon  was  welcomed  by  his 
brother-in-law,  Nicholas  A.  Berthoud.  Wasting  no 
time  in  vain  regrets,  he  began  doing  portraits  in  crayon, 
and  with  such  success  that  he  was  able  to  rent  a  modest 
apartment  and  have  his  family  about  him  again.  From 
no  charges  for  his  tentative  efforts  the  price  was  grad- 
ually raised  until  he  received  five  dollars  or  more  a 
head ;  with  the  spread  of  his  fame  orders  filled  his  hands, 
and  he  was  called  long  distances  to  take  likenesses  of 
the  dying  or  even  of  the  dead.  Audubon's  facility  in 
portraiture  was  a  valuable  resource,  and  it  kept  him 
from  the  starving  line  at  many  a  pinch  in  later  years. 

Through  the  influence  of  friends  the  naturalist  was 
offered  a  position  as  taxidermist  at  a  museum  which  had 
just  been  started  at  Cincinnati;  here  his  family  joined 
him  in  the  winter  of  1819-20,  and  here  he  remained  for 
nearly  a  year.  The  published  accounts  of  this  Cincin- 
nati experience  are  strangely  confused  and  have  led  to 
aspersions  of  bad  faith  which  were,  we  believe,  quite 
undeserved.  "I  was  presented,"  said  Audubon,  "to  the 
president  of  the  Cincinnati  College,  Dr.  Drake,  and 
immediately  formed  an  engagement  to  stuff  birds  for 
the  museum  there,  in  concert  with  Mr.  Robert  Best,  an 
Englishman  of  great  talent,"  adding  that  his  salary  was 
large ;  so  industrious  were  they,  to  continue  his  account, 
"that  in  about  six  months  we  had  augmented,  arranged, 
and  finished  all  that  we  could  do,"  but  they  found  to 
their  sorrow  "that  the  members  of  the  College  museum 
were  splendid  promisers  and  very  bad  paymasters."  x 

1  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals  (Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i, 
p.  36. 


304       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

It  has  been  stated  that  Audubon  got  nothing  from  Dr. 
Drake,  but  that  "Mrs.  Audubon  afterwards  received 
four  hundred  dollars,  of  the  twelve  hundred  due,"  and 
that  the  remainder  was  never  paid.2  This  matter  can 
now  be  fully  cleared  up,  and  it  will  appear  that  the 
Cincinnati  College  was  in  no  way  involved;  Dr.  Drake 
was  not  its  president,  although  he  drew  its  charter  and 
was  one  of  its  trustees;  the  Museum  in  which  the  nat- 
uralist worked  was  an  independent  foundation;  and 
Mrs.  Audubon  was  probably  paid  in  full  for  the  service 
which  her  husband  had  rendered. 

Audubon  wrote  in  his  journal  in  1820,  when  this 
experience  was  fresh  in  his  mind,  that  owing  to  his 
talent  for  stuffing  fishes  he  entered  the  service  of  the 
Western  Museum  at  a  salary  of  $125  a  month;  he  made 
no  complaint  at  that  time  of  any  lack  of  pay.  More- 
over, on  the  day  before  he  started  on  his  cruise  down 
the  Ohio  River  on  the  llth  of  October  of  that  year, 
the  Rev.  Elijah  Slack  gave  him  a  letter  of  introduction 
in  which  he  said  that  Audubon  had  "been  engaged  in 
our  museum  for  3  to  4  months,  and  that  his  perform- 
ances do  honor  to  his  pencil."  Since  Mr.  Slack,  like 
Dr.  Drake,  was  one  of  the  managers  of  the  Western 
Museum,  he  must  have  known  of  Audubon's  term  of 
service.  We  are  convinced  that  Dr.  Daniel  Drake,3 

2  Ibid.,  vol.  i,  p.  49. 

3  Dr.   Daniel   Drake    (1785-1852)    was   one   of  the   most  versatile   and 
prolific    writers    on    medicine    which    the    West    has    ever    produced,    and 
Cincinnati    owed    to    him    much,    for    he    was    instrumental    in    organizing 
in  that  city  a  church,  a  literary  society,  a  museum,  a  hospital,  a  college, 
and  a  school  of  medicine,  while  he  enjoyed  a  large  medical  practice,  lectured 
on  botany,  and  was  a  partner  in  two  mercantile  establishments.    We  might 
also  add  that  his  "Notice  concerning  Cincinnati"    (pp.  1-28,  i-iv.     Printed 
for  the  author  at  Cincinnati,  1810),  of  which  only  three  copies  are  known 
to  exist,  is  the  earliest  and  rarest   published  record   of  that  city.     This 
little  pamphlet  included  a  "Flora"  of  the  city  for  1809,  and  from  it  we 
transcribe  this  interesting  extract  (p.  27) :  "May  10.     Black  locust  in  full 
flower. 


AUDUBON'S  ^ENEID  305 

whose  character  was  above  reproach  and  who  was  a 
keen  naturalist  himself,  was  Audubon's  good  friend, 
and  that  no  misunderstanding  ever  rose  between  them. 
In  writing  offhand  from  memory,  years  after  the  events, 
Audubon  misstated  the  facts  but  evidently  without 
design. 

In  1818  Dr.  Drake  organized  the  Western  Museum 
Society,  of  which  he  said:  "I  have  drawn  up  the  con- 
stitution in  such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  institution  a 
complete  school  for  natural  history,  and  hope  to  see 
concentrated  in  this  place,  the  choicest  natural  and  arti- 
ficial curiosities  in  the  Western  Country."  The  first 
meeting  of  the  Society  was  held  in  the  summer  of  1819, 
not  long  before  Audubon  was  engaged  to  work  for  it. 
The  membership  fee  was  $50,  a  considerable  sum  for 
that  period,  but  the  enterprise  was  well  patronized.  It 
was  in  charge  of  a  board  of  whom  Dr.  Drake  was  the 
moving  spirit;  another  member,  as  we  have  seen,  was 
Rev.  Mr.  Slack,  who  became  the  first  president  of  the 
Cincinnati  College,  which  was  organized  in  1818-19. 
The  collections  of  the  Museum  were  placed  in  one  of 
the  buildings  of  the  College  in  order  better  to  serve  the 
students  and  public,  which  would  account  for  some  of 
the  confusion  noted  above. 

Dr.  Drake's  hands  at  this  time  were  more  than  full; 
in  October,  1819,  he  wrote  to  a  friend:  "The  ties  which 
bind  me  to  the  world  at  large  seem  every  day  to  increase 
in  strength  and  numbers.  The  crowd  of  mankind  with 

"It  is  highly  probable  that  the  flowering  of  this  beautiful  tree,  the 
Robinia  pseudocacia  of  Linnaeus,  indicates  the  proper  time  for  planting 
the  important  vegetable  the  Indian  corn.  For  several  successive  years  I 
have  observed  our  farmers  generally  to  plant  corn  during  some  stage  of 
its  flowering.  This  from  the  10th  to  the  20th  of  May." 

For  the  privilege  of  examining  one  of  the  original  copies  of  this 
paper,  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Wallace  H.  Cathcart  of  the  Western  Re- 
serve Historical  Society  of  Cleveland. 


306       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

whom  I  have  some  direct  or  indirect  concern,  thickens 
around  me,  and  I  see  little  prospect  of  more  leisure, 
nor  any  of  retirement  and  seclusion."  At  this  juncture 
also,  when  Audubon  and  Best  were  working  for  his 
Museum,  Dr.  Drake  was  experiencing  the  first  disas- 
trous check  in  his  energetic  career.  In  January,  1820, 
in  spite  of  the  opposition  and  intrigue  of  professional 
rivals,  he  succeeded  in  organizing  the  Medical  College 
of  Ohio,  and  Robert  Best  became  the  assistant  in  chem- 
istry and  the  curator  of  the  Western  Museum.  Opposi- 
tion did  not  abate,  but  instead  of  strangling  the  College 
which  he  had  founded,  the  marplots  succeeded  in  ex- 
pelling the  Doctor  from  its  staff.  At  last,  feeling 
obliged  to  leave  the  city,  Dr.  Drake  accepted  in  1823 
a  position  in  the  rival  medical  school  of  Transylvania 
University,  and  thus  became  a  colleague  of  Constantine 
Rafinesque.  It  will  be  seen  that  Audubon's  engage- 
ment at  Cincinnati  fell  in  a  troubled  era,  and  the  annoy- 
ance which  he  may  have  felt  at  lack  of  pay  was  probably 
no  fault  of  the  harassed  doctor. 

While  at  Cincinnati  Audubon  was  obliged  to  resort 
to  his  crayon  portraits;  and  he  also  started  a  drawing 
school,  but  it  required  all  of  Mrs.  Audubon's  skill  in 
management  to  keep  the  family  out  of  debt.  In  1820 
he  began  for  the  first  time  seriously  to  consider  the  pos- 
sibility of  publishing  his  drawings,  and  under  the  spur 
of  this  incentive  began  to  exert  himself  as  never  before. 
He  planned  a  long  journey  through  the  Middle  West 
and  South,  his  intention  being  to  descend  the  Ohio  and 
Mississippi  Rivers,  explore  the  country  about  New  Or- 
leans, and  then  proceed  as  far  east  as  the  Florida  Keys ; 
he  wished  also  to  ascend  the  Red  River,  cross  Arkansas, 
and  visit  the  Hot  Springs,  before  returning  again  by 
river  to  Cincinnati.  Lack  of  ready  money  was  no  draw- 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  307 

back,  for  he  was  now  confident  of  being  able  to  live 
by  his  talents  alone. 

Accordingly,  he  left  his  wife  to  care  for  their  two 
boys,  and  on  October  12,  1820,  started  down  river  in  a 
flatboat,  bound  for  New  Orleans.  His  companions  on 
this  journey  were  Captain  Cummings,4  an  engineer  who 
had  been  in  the  government  service,  to  whom  Audubon 
became  much  attached ;  Joseph  R.  Mason,  a  promising 
artist  of  eighteen,  in  the  role  of  pupil-assistant,  and  his 
dog  "Dash."  Although  Audubon  had  no  funds,  he  was 
careful  to  provide  himself  with  letters  to  or  from  men 
of  mark  who  could  be  of  assistance  to  him  and  this  cus- 
tom was  followed  to  good  effect  at  a  much  later  day. 
On  this  occasion  he  bore  recommendations  from 
William  H.  Harrison,  who  afterwards  became  Presi- 
dent, to  Governor  Miller  of  Arkansas,  and  from  Henry 
Clay,  as  well  as  his  letter  from  Rev.  Elijah  Slack,  in 
which  it  was  stated  that  the  naturalist  was  traveling  to 
complete  his  collection  of  the  birds  of  the  United  States 
which  he  intended  to  publish  at  some  future  time. 
Audubon  also  wrote  a  personal  letter  to  Governor 
Miller,  fully  outlining  his  plans,  and  asking  for  infor- 
mation; he  told  the  Governor  that  he  had  been  working 
fifteen  years,  and  that  his  drawings  of  birds  and  plants 
were  all  from  nature  and  life-size,  showing  that  the  idea 
of  publication  which  was  afterwards  realized  was  then 
fixed  in  his  mind.  Audubon  kept  a  careful  journal  on 
this  journey,  which  extended  over  a  year,  the  last  entry 
being  for  the  close  of  182 1.5 

4  See  Audubon's  letter  to  Thomas  Sully,  reproduced  in  Vol.  II,  p.  68.    In 
his  Ohio  and  Mississippi  Rivers  Journal  Audubon  wrote  on  April  5,  1821: 
"Cap.  Cumming  left  us  on  the  10  for  Phila;  the  poor  man  had  not  one  cent 
with  him." 

5  This  early  journal  fills  a  large  unruled  book,  measuring  about  13  by 
8   inches,   of  201    pages,  beginning  with   Oct.    12,    1820,   and   closing   with 
December  31,  1821;  it  forms  a  part  of  the  John  E.  Thayer  collection  of 


308       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

As  their  flatboat  stopped  at  many  towns  and  planta- 
tions on  the  rivers,  Audubon  could  hunt  game  and  birds 
to  his  heart's  content.  Having  resolved,  as  he  said, 
never  to  draw  from  a  stuffed  specimen,  he  worked  at 
every  new  bird  with  the  greatest  diligence.  It  seems 
almost  incredible  that  he  should  never  have  met  with 
the  Hermit  Thrush  before  this  journey,  yet  under  date 
of  "Oct.  14,  1820,"  there  is  this  entry:  "We  returned 
to  our  boat  with  a  Wild  Turkey,  a  Telltale  Godwit  and 
a  Hermit  Thrush,  which  was  too  much  torn  to  make  a 
drawing  of  it ;  this  was  the  first  time  I  had  met  with  this 
bird,  and  I  felt  particularly  mortified  at  its  condition."  6 

Their  visit  to  Natchez  furnished  Audubon  with  ma- 
terials for  at  least  two  of  his  "Episodes."  7  This  inci- 
dent of  his  generosity  may  be  taken  as  characteristic; 
finding  that  one  of  his  companions  was  down  at  the 
heel  and  as  short  of  ready  money  as  himself,  he  sought 
out  a  shoemaker  and  offered  to  do  a  portrait  of  the 
man  and  his  wife  for  two  pairs  of  boots;  the  proposal 
was  accepted  forthwith,  and  he  set  to  work;  the  sketches 
were  finished  in  the  course  of  two  hours,  and  Audubon 

Audubon  and  Wilson  manuscripts  and  drawings  in  possession  of  Harvard 
University,  having  been  once  included  in  the  estate  of  Joseph  M.  Wade. 
The  collection  embraces  four  early  drawings  by  Audubon,  presumably  at 
one  time  in  the  hands  of  Edward  Harris  (see  Note  9,  Vol.  I,  p.  180) ;  73  of 
Audubon's  original  letters,  comprising  largely  his  correspondence  with  Dr. 
John  Bachman;  60  letters  by  Victor  G.  Audubon;  and  a  few  by  other  mem- 
bers of  the  naturalist's  family.  See  the  Annual  Report  of  the  Curator  of 
the  Museum  of  Comparative  Zoology  for  1910-1911. 

Through  the  courtesy  of  Professor  E.  L.  Mark,  and  the  Director  of 
the  Museum,  Dr.  Samuel  Henshaw,  I  have  been  permitted  to  examine 
these  numerous  documents.  In  any  direct  or  casual  reference  to  this 
valuable  material,  I  have  endeavored  not  to  overstep  the  bounds  of  pro- 
priety, in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  University  contemplates  publishing 
copious  extracts  from  it  at  an  early  day.  It  should  be  noticed  that 
excerpts  from  this  journal  have  already  appeared  in  print.  See  following 
Note. 

"See  Ruthven  Deane    (Bibl.  No.  41),  The  Auk,  vol.  xxi,  pp.  334-338. 

T  "Natchez  in  1820"  and  "The  Lost  Portfolio,"  Ornithological  Biography 
(Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  iii,  pp.  529  and  564. 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  309 

and  his  companion,  having  selected  their  boots,  went  on 
their  way  rejoicing. 

Audubon  left  Natchez  on  December  31,  1820,  on  a 
keel  boat  belonging  to  his  brother-in-law,  Nicholas  A. 
Berthoud,  who  accompanied  him,  and  at  one  o'clock  the 
steamer  Columbus  hauled  off  from  the  landing  and 
took  them  in  tow.  Towards  evening,  when  they  were 
looking  up  their  personal  belongings,  the  naturalist 
found  to  his  dismay  that  a  portfolio  containing  all  of 
the  drawings  that  he  had  made  on  the  voyage  down  the 
river  was  missing.  Letters  were  despatched  to  Natchez 
friends,  but  it  was  not  until  the  16th  of  March  that  his 
anxiety  was  relieved;  the  missing  portfolio  had  been 
found  and  left  at  the  office  of  The  Mississippi  Repub- 
lican, whence  it  was  forwarded  on  his  order,  and  reached 
his  hand  on  the  5th  of  April.  "So  very  generous  had 
been  the  finder  of  it,"  he  said,  "that  when  I  carefully 
examined  the  drawings  in  succession,  I  found  them  all 
present  and  uninjured,  save  one,  which  had  probably 
been  kept  by  way  of  commission." 

On  New  Year's  Day,  1821,  they  came  to  at  Bayou 
Sara,  at  the  mouth  of  the  inlet  of  that  name,  which 
later  saw  much  of  Audubon  and  his  family.  On  the 
following  day  he  made  a  likeness  of  the  master  of  their 
craft,  Mr.  Dickenson,  for  which  he  was  paid  in  gold; 
he  also  outlined  two  warblers  by  candle-light  in  order 
to  have  time  to  finish  them  on  the  morrow.  The  captain 
of  their  steamer  in  his  anxiety  to  make  haste  had  set 
them  adrift  at  this  point,  and  they  were  obliged  to  make 
their  way  as  best  they  could,  by  aid  of  the  current  and 
oars,  to  the  port  of  New  Orleans,  which  was  finally 
entered  on  Sunday,  January  7,  1821. 

Audubon  landed  at  New  Orleans  without  enough 
money  to  pay  for  a  night's  lodging,  for  someone  had 


310       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

relieved  him  of  the  little  he  possessed,  and  he  was  obliged 
to  pass  several  nights  on  the  boat  while  looking  for  work. 
Undismayed  by  his  financial  straits,  his  first  visit  at  day- 
break on  Monday  was  to  the  famous  markets  of  the 
southern  city,  where  he  found  dead  birds  exposed  for 
sale  in  great  numbers — mallard,  teal,  American  wid- 
geon, Canada  and  snow  geese,  mergansers,  tell-tale  god- 
wits,  and  even  robins,  bluebirds  and  red-wing  black- 
birds ;  he  added  that  the  prices  were  very  dear. 

Upon  leaving  Cincinnati  Audubon  had  resolved 
upon  making  one  hundred  drawings  of  birds;  this  was 
actually  accomplished,  but  only  after  repeatedly  modi- 
fying his  plans  and  working  in  more  humble  capacities 
than  he  was  at  first  inclined  to  consider.  On  the  12th 
of  January  he  wrote  in  his  diary  of  meeting  an  Italian 
painter  at  the  theater,  and  of  showing  him  his  drawing 
of  the  White-headed  Eagle 8  at  the  rooms  of  Mr.  Ber- 
thoud;  "he  was  much  pleased,"  and  took  him  "to  his 
painting  apartment  at  the  theater,  then  to  the  directors, 
who  very  roughly  offered  me  one  hundred  dollars  per 
month  to  paint  with  Monsieur  I'ltalien.  I  believe  really 
now  that  my  talents  must  be  poor,"  said  Audubon.  His 
refusal  of  this  offer  in  view  of  his  straitened  circum- 
stances, and  the  entry  which  followed,  were  character- 
istic: "Jan.  13th,  1821.  I  rose  up  early,  tormented  by 
many  disagreeable  thoughts,  again  nearly  without  a 
cent,  in  a  bustling  city  where  no  one  cares  a  fig  for  a 
man  in  my  situation."  The  following  day  Audubon 
applied  to  a  self-taught  portrait  painter,  John  W. 

8  The  original  of  this  admirable  drawing  had  been  shot  at  New  Madrid, 
on  the  Ohio,  on  November  23,  and  Audubon,  who  immediately  began  to 
work  on  it,  recorded  his  conviction  that  the  White-headed  or  Bald  Eagle 
and  the  "Brown  Eagle,"  which  he  later  called  "The  Bird  of  Washington," 
were  two  different  species ;  he  thought  that  the  young  of  the  former,  which 
was  also  brown,  was  much  smaller  in  size.  See  Vol.  I,  p.  241. 


AUDUBON'S  ^ENEID  311 

Jarvis,  and  after  showing  his  drawings,  was  engaged 
to  assist  him  in  finishing  the  "clothing  and  ground" ;  but 
this  artist's  manners  were  declared  to  be  so  uncouth 
and  the  pay  so  poor  that  he  left  him  in  disgust. 

When  he  had  made  a  hit,  as  he  said,  with  the  like- 
ness of  a  well  known  citizen,  orders  came  to  him,  and 
he  was  able  to  resume  his  drawing  of  birds.  On  Feb- 
ruary 22  he  recorded  that  he  had  spent  his  time  in 
"running  after  orders  for  portraits,  and  also  in  vain 
endeavors  to  obtain  a  sight  of  Alexander  Wilson's 
'Ornithology,'  but  was  unsuccessful  in  seeing  the  book, 
which  is  very  high  priced."  Later,  however,  he  appears 
to  have  succeeded  in  this  quest,  for  on  the  17th  of  that 
month  he  was  able  to  send  his  wife  twenty  drawings  of 
birds,  eight  of  which  were  marked  as  "not  described  by 
Willson."  Among  them  were  the  originals  of  some  of 
the  most  famous  of  his  plates,  such  as  the  Great-footed 
Hawk,  the  White-headed  Eagle,  and  the  Hen  Turkey.9 

Having  seen  in  a  newspaper  a  notice  of  an  expedi- 
tion which  the  Government  was  about  to  send  to  the 

"These  drawings  were  as   follows: 

"Common  gallinule;  Not  described  by  Willson; 

"Common  gull;  Not  described  by  Willson; 

"Marsh  hawk; 

"Boat  tailed  grackle;  Not   described  by  Willson; 

"Common  Crow; 

"Fish  Crow; 

"Rail  or  Sora; 

"Marsh  Tern; 

"Snipe;   Not  described  by  Willson; 

"Hermit   Thrush; 

"Yellow   Red  poll   Warbler; 

"Savannah   Finch; 

"Bath   Ground   Warbler;   Not   described  by  Willson; 

"Brown   Pelican;   Not  described  by  Willson; 

"Great  Footed  Hawk; 

"Turkey  Hen;  Not  described  by  Willson; 

"Cormorant ; 

"Carrion  Crow  or  Black  Vulture; 

"Imber  Diver; 

"White  Headed  or  Bald  Eagle." 


312       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Pacific  Coast,  to  survey  the  boundary  of  the  territory 
that  had  been  recently  ceded  by  Spain,  Audubon  be- 
came much  excited  over  a  possible  appointment  as 
draughtsman  and  naturalist.  He  sat  down  at  once  and 
wrote  a  personal  letter  to  President  Monroe,  while  hun- 
dreds of  imaginary  birds  of  new  and  interesting  kinds 
seemed  to  come  within  the  range  of  his  gun;  on  the  31st 
of  March  he  was  still  pondering  on  the  project,  and  al- 
though it  is  not  likely  that  his  letter  ever  reached  the  eye 
of  the  President,  he  did  receive  a  recommendation  from 
Governor  Robertson  of  Louisiana.  It  was  with  this 
expedition  in  view  that  he  sought  an  interview  with  John 
Vanderlyn,10  an  eminent  painter  of  historical  subjects, 
then  working  in  New  Orleans ;  according  to  one  version 
Vanderlyn  treated  him  as  a  mendicant,  and  ordered 
him  to  lay  down  his  portfolio  in  the  lobby,  but  ended 
by  giving  him  a  very  complimentary  note,  in  which  he 
praised  his  drawings  without  stint,  particularly  his 
studies  of  birds. 

During  the  five  months  spent  at  New  Orleans  in 
1821,  Audubon  attempted  to  support  himself  and  his 
companion  by  means  of  their  artistic  talents,  while  he 
was  pushing  forward  his  ambitious  design  of  figuring  all 
of  America's  birds  and  most  characteristic  plants.  That 
he  received  scant  encouragement  but  many  rebuffs  is 
not  surprising.  They  did  succeed  in  obtaining  a  few 
pupils  in  drawing,  and  Audubon  made  a  number  of 
rapid  portraits,  but  after  living  for  a  time  on  Ursuline 
Street,  near  the  old  Convent,  and  later  shifting  from 

10  Vanderlyn,  like  Audubon,  had  been  a  pupil  of  David  at  Paris;  he 
produced  historical  paintings  of  merit,  as  well  as  panoramas,  then  coming 
into  vogue;  some  of  the  latter  were  exhibited  in  the  "Rotunda"  which  he 
erected  for  that  purpose  in  City  Hall  Park,  New  York,  but  this  enter- 
prise failed,  and  his  building  was  seized  by  the  city  for  debt.  Vanderlyn 
died  in  absolute  want  in  1852.  See  Samuel  Isham,  The  History  of  Ameri- 
can Painting  (New  York,  1915). 


AUDUBON'S  ^ENEID  313 

one  quarter  to  another,  their  finances  had  reached  so 
low  an  ebb  by  the  beginning  of  June  that  a  move  was 
imperative.  Audubon  then  decided  to  go  to  Shipping- 
port,  Kentucky,  and  on  the  16th  of  June,  with  young 
Mason,  he  again  boarded  the  steamer  Columbus,  John 
D'Hart,  captain,  and  started  up  river.  An  incident 
now  occurred  which  affected  the  naturalist's  whole  after 
life  by  introducing  him  to  one  of  the  most  favored  spots 
in  Louisiana,  if  not  in  the  whole  country,  for  the  study 
of  bird  life,  not  to  speak  of  the  impressions  which  the 
charm  of  new  scenery,  a  rich  flora,  and  natural  products 
of  the  most  varied  description  must  have  then  made 
on  his  mind.  Mrs.  James  Pirrie,  wife  of  a  prosperous 
cotton  planter  of  West  Feliciana  Parish,  happened  to 
be  their  fellow-passenger.  Doubtless  her  curiosity  was 
piqued  by  the  winning  manners  and  flowing  locks  of 
the  artistic  traveler,  whose  Gallic  accent  at  once  be- 
trayed his  nationality.  Whether  Audubon  had  made 
her  acquaintance  previous  to  this  journey  or  not  is  not 
known,  but  before  it  was  ended  his  fine  enthusiasm  and 
ambitious  plans  had  found  a  sympathizer,  and  he  was 
engaged  as  tutor  to  Mrs.  Pirrie's  daughter  at  $60  a 
month.  To  further  his  ornithological  pursuits  it  was 
understood  that  he  and  his  companion  should  live  at 
"Oakley,"  her  husband's  plantation,  five  miles  from  St. 
Francisville,  on  Bayou  Sara,  and  that  one-half  of  his 
time  should  be  absolutely  free  for  hunting  and  drawing. 
Thus,  on  June  18,  1821,  was  forged  the  link  that 
bound  the  heart  of  Audubon  to  the  State  which  was 
first  in  his  affections,  and  which  he  would  fain  believe 
might  have  been  the  scene  of  his  nativity.  Well  may 
the  Louisianians  of  today  adopt  him  as  their  son,  for 
from  that  early  time  he  cherished  their  State  as  in  a  pecu- 
liar sense  his  own. 


314       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

It  was  a  hot  and  sultry  day  when  our  wanderers 
landed  at  Bayou  Sara,11  a  small  settlement  at  the  junc- 
tion of  the  sluggish  stream  which  bears  that  name  and 
the  Mississippi,  and  proceeded  to  climb  to  St.  Francis- 
ville,  the  village  a  mile  away  on  the  hill.  Mrs.  Pirrie, 
who  seems  to  have  preceded  the  travelers  by  carriage, 
sent  some  of  her  servants  to  relieve  them  of  their  lug- 
gage, which  Audubon  said  they  found  light.  They 
rested  in  the  village  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Benjamin 
Swift,  where  they  were  invited  to  stay  to  dinner,  then 
at  the  point  of  being  served,  but  feeling  somewhat  ill 
at  ease,  they  thanked  their  host  and  again  took  to  the 
road.  Following  their  leisurely  guides,  they  now 
traversed  a  country  so  new,  so  strange,  and  so  enchant- 
ing, that  the  five  miles  to  the  Pirrie  house  seemed  short 
indeed.  "The  rich  magnolias,  covered  with  fragrant 
blossoms,  the  holly,  the  beech,  the  tall  yellow  poplar,  the 
hilly  ground,  and  even  the  red  clay,"  to  quote  Audu- 
bon's  record  made  at  the  time,  "all  excited  my  admira- 
tion. Such  an  entire  change  in  the  face  of  nature,  in 
so  short  a  time,  seems  almost  supernatural,  and  sur- 
rounded once  more  by  numerous  warblers  and  thrushes, 
I  enjoyed  the  scene." 

In  passing  up  the  Mississippi  from  New  Orleans, 
the  topography  of  the  country  suddenly  changes  at 


11  "Bayou,"  in  Louisiana,  is  a  term  commonly  applied  to  any  slow- 
running  stream.  According  to  the  tradition  gathered  on  the  spot  by  Mr. 
Stanley  C.  Arthur,  both  stream  and  settlement  were  formerly  called  "New 
Valentia,"  while  the  present  name  was  derived  from  an  old  woman  called 
"Sara,"  who  many  years  ago  lived  at  the  mouth  of  the  Bayou,  where  she 
practiced  some  sort  of  spurious  physic.  St.  Francis ville,  on  the  hill,  re- 
ceived its  name  from  the  circumstance  that  the  brothers  of  St.  Francis, 
who  had  a  mission  at  Pointe  Coupee,  on  the  opposite  bank,  were  in  the 
habit  of  ferrying  their  dead  over  the  river,  in  order  to  bury  them  on 
the  high  ground;  "Bayou  Sara"  and  "St.  Francisville"  are  used  interchange- 
ably by  the  inhabitants.  See  S.  C.  Arthur  (Bibl.  No.  230),  Times-Picayune, 
New  Orleans,  August  6,  1916. 


HAYor     SAKA     LANDING,     WKST    KKI.ICMAXA    PARISH,    LOUISIANA,     AT    THE    JUNCTION 
OF    HAYOC     SAItA     AND    THK    MISSISSIPPI     KIVKK. 


SCEXE    OX    BAYOU    SARA     C'HKK.K.      \II)l   Hox's     Ill'STINC    (MtOfNI)     IN      I S  J I  . 

This  and  the  ;il)()\f  after  phototrraplis  by  Mr.  Stanley  Clisby  Arthur,  191(>. 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  315 

about  this  point;  in  the  parish  of  West  Feliciana  the 
alluvial  lowlands  of  the  river  valley  give  place  to  beau- 
tiful highlands,  which  still  harbor  as  rich  and  distinctive 
a  flora  and  fauna  as  in  Audubon's  day.  Following 
Audubon's  course  in  June,  1916,  or  ninety-five  years 
later,  Mr.  Arthur  found  the  region  about  St.  Francis- 
ville  wonderfully  rich  in  birds,  and  there  noted  seventy- 
eight  resident  kinds  which  were  seen  on  the  same  day, 
from  shortly  before  noon  to  seven  o'clock  in  the  evening. 

Upon  reaching  the  plantation  house,  Audubon  and 
his  companion  were  kindly  received  by  the  Scotchman, 
James  Pirrie,  who  introduced  to  them  his  daughter, 
Eliza,  then  a  beautiful  and  talented  girl  of  seventeen — 
"my  lovely  Miss  Pirrie,  of  Oakley,"  as  Audubon  once 
characterized  her  in  his  journal — who  was  to  become  his 
pupil  in  drawing,  and  who,  as  after  events  proved,  was 
destined  to  a  romantic  and  checkered  career. 

The  "Oakley"  house,  which  by  a  strange  turn  of 
fortune's  wheel  thus  became  the  naturalist's  home  in  the 
summer  of  1821,  has  changed  but  little  since  that  time, 
but  the  century  that  has  nearly  sped  its  course  has  added 
strength  and  beauty  to  the  moss-hung  oaks  which  now 
encompass  it  and  temper  the  heat  of  the  southern  sun 
in  the  double-decked  galleries  which  adorn  its  whole 
front.  Built  of  the  enduring  cypress,  as  my  correspond- 
ent remarks,  the  house  stands  as  firm  and  sound  as  the 
gaunt  but  living  sentinels  of  that  order  which  tower 
from  the  brake  not  far  away. 

Audubon  spent  nearly  five  months  at  the  Pirrie 
estate.  He  worked  with  great  ardor  at  his  Ornithology 
and  produced  the  originals  of  many  of  his  plates  that 
were  afterwards  published,  while  his  assistant,  Joseph 
Mason,  who  had  followed  him  from  Cincinnati,  labored 
with  equal  diligence  at  the  plants  that  were  chosen  as  a 


316       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

setting  for  the  birds.12  An  early  drawing  of  the  Chuck 
Will's  Widow  is  dated  "Red  River,  June,  1821,"  and  it 
is  probable  that  he  followed  this  stream  into  Arkansas, 
for  on  leaving  Cincinnati  in  the  autumn  of  the  previous 
year,  he  had  planned  to  enter  that  State,  and  later  ref- 
erences in  his  journals  clearly  imply  that  this  object 
was  attained.  Another  favorite  hunting  ground  was 
Thompson's  Creek,  and  he  often  recalled  its  heated 
banks,  where,  on  a  Fourth  of  July,  he  once  satisfied  his 
hunger  by  "swallowing  the  roasted  eggs  of  a  large  soft 
shelled  turtle." 

On  August  11,  1821,  while  Audubon  was  living  at 
"Oakley,"  he  made  this  entry  in  his  journal: 

Watched  all  night  by  the  dead  body  of  a  friend  of  Mrs. 

P ;  he  was  not  known  to  me,  and  he  had  literally  drunk 

himself  to  an  everlasting  sleep.  Peace  to  his  soul!  I  made  a 
good  sketch  of  his  head,  as  a  present  for  his  poor  wife.  On 
such  occasions  time  flies  very  slow  indeed,  so  much  so  that  it 
looked  as  if  it  stood  still,  like  the  hawk  that  poises  over  its 
prey. 

In  the  same  journal  also,  for  August  25,  occurs  a 
record  which  throws  light  on  one  of  Audubon's  most 
discussed  and  questionable  pictures,  that  of  the  mock- 
ing-birds defending  their  jessamine-embowered  nest 
from  the  sinister  designs  of  a  rattlesnake; 13  little  did  he 

"On  the  original  drawing  of  the  Pine-creeping  Warbler  The  Birds  of 
America  (Plate  cxl),  the  following  legends  appear  in  Audubon's  autograph: 
"Drawn  from  Nature  by  John  J.  Audubon,  James  Pirrie's  Plantation, 
Louisiana,  July  10,  1821.  Plant,  J.  R.  Mason." 

Sixteen  of  Audubon's  originals,  which  still  bear  the  designations  of 
time  and  place,  were  produced  during  this  interval,  in  the  year  1821; 
they  embrace  the  Mississippi  Kite  (Plate  cxvii,  see  Vol.  I,  p.  228),  June  28; 
Yellow-throated  Vireo  (Plate  cxix),  July  11;  Red-cockaded  Woodpecker 
(Plate  ccclxxxix),  July  29;  American  Redstart  (Plate  xl),  August  13; 
Summer  Red-bird  (Plate  xliv),  August  27;  Prairie  Warbler  (Plate  xiv), 
Sept.  3;  and  the  Tennessee  Warbler  (Plate  cliv),  Oct.  IT. 

13  The  Birds  of  America,  Plate  xxi. 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  317 

think  at  the  time  how  much  discord  this  venomous  rep- 
tile, when  coiled  in  the  branches  of  a  tree,  could  later 
breed.14  The  entry  was: 

Finished  drawing  a  very  fine  specimen  of  a  rattlesnake, 
which  measured  five  feet  and  seven  inches,  weighed  six  and  a 
quarter  pounds,  and  had  ten  rattles.  Anxious  to  give  it  a 
position  most  interesting  to  a  naturalist,  I  put  it  in  that  which 
the  reptile  commonly  takes  when  on  the  point  of  striking  madly 
with  its  fangs.  I  had  examined  many  before,  and  especially 
the  position  of  the  fangs  along  the  superior  jaw-bones,  but 
had  never  seen  one  showing  the  whole  [of  the  fangs]  exposed  at 
the  same  time. 

He  then  described  the  generous  provision  which  nature 
has  made  to  keep  the  rattlesnake  in  fighting  trim,  by 
giving  it  a  dental  arsenal  on  which  it  can  draw  in  case 
of  loss ;  he  added  that  the  heat  of  the  day  was  such  that 
he  could  devote  only  sixteen  hours  to  the  drawing. 

At  this  time  Audubon  was  a  handsome  and  attrac- 
tive man;  his  pupil,  who  did  not  enjoy  the  best  of  health, 
was  attended  by  a  young  physician  who  was  also  her 
lover.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore  to  learn  that  jeal- 
ousy on  the  part  of  the  doctor  led  to  a  misunderstanding, 
and  that  the  naturalist  suddenly  made  his  departure  and 
returned  to  New  Orleans.  In  recording  this  incident 
Audubon  could  not  repress  his  amusement  at  the  pre- 
scription of  the  physician,  who  ordered  the  young  lady 
to  abstain  from  all  writing  and  drawing  for  a  period  of 
four  months,  but  meanwhile  permitted  her  to  eat  any- 
thing which  pleased  her  fancy,  in  spite  of  the  relapses 
of  fever  that  occasionally  occurred.  Audubon  was  al- 
lowed to  see  her  only  at  appointed  hours,  as  if,  he  said, 
he  were  an  extraordinary  ambassador  to  some  distant 

14  See  Chapter  XXVIII,  p.  72. 


318       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

court,  and  was  obliged  to  preserve  the  utmost  decorum 
of  manner ;  he  expressed  the  belief  that  he  had  not  once 
laughed  in  the  presence  of  the  young  lady  during  the 
entire  term  of  his  tutorial  engagement,  which  lasted 
from  the  18th  of  June  to  the  21st  of  October.  Later, 
in  December  of  the  same  year,  when  his  former  pupil 
passed  him  without  recognition  in  the  streets  of  New 
Orleans,  he  indulged  in  the  reflection  that  she  had  ap- 
parently quite  forgotten  the  great  pains  with  which  at 
her  own  request  he  had  done  her  portrait  in  pastels, 
but,  thanks  to  his  talents,  he  thought  that  he  could  run 
the  gauntlet  of  the  world  without  her  help.15 

At  New  Orleans  Audubon  soon  found  new  pupils, 
particularly  through  the  aid  of  Mr.  R.  Pamar  and  Mr. 
William  Braud,16  who  came  to  his  assistance,  Mrs. 
Braud  and  her  son  paying  him  at  the  rate  of  three  dol- 
lars for  a  lesson  of  one  hour.  On  November  10,  1821, 
he  wrote : 

Continued  my  close  application  to  my  ornithology,  writing 
every  day,  from  morning  until  night,  omitting  no  observations, 
correcting,  re-arranging  from  my  notes  and  measurements,  and 
posting  up;  particularly  all  my  land  birds.  The  great  many 
errors  I  found  in  the  work  of  Wilson  astonished  me.  I  try  to 
speak  of  them  with  care,  and  as  seldom  as  possible,  knowing 
the  good  will  of  that  man,  and  the  vast  many  hearsay  accounts 
he  depended  on. 

"The  vivacious  Miss  Pirrie  did  not  marry  the  young  doctor,  but 
eloped  to  Natchez  with  the  son  of  a  neighboring  planter,  who  died  within 
a  month  in  consequence  of  a  cold,  said  to  have  been  contracted  when  he 
waded  a  deep  stream  with  his  lady-love  in  his  arms.  Audubon's  pupil 
was  thrice  married,  and  bore  five  children;  she  died  April  20,  1851,  and 
her  ashes  now  rest  by  the  side  of  her  second  husband,  the  Reverend 
William  Robert  Bowman,  the  parish  minister  at  St.  Francisville.  See 
Arthur  (Bibl.  No.  230),  loc.  cit. 

"Mistakenly  written  "Brand"  by  Audubon's  biographers,  according  to 
Mr.  Stanley  C.  Arthur,  who  writes  that  "Braud"  is  a  very  common  name 
in  New  Orleans. 


KOAl)    LEADING    1  UO.H    JIAYOT    SAHA     LANDING    TO   THE    VILLAGE    OF   ST.    JTRANC1SV1LLE, 
WEST    FELICIANA    PARISH,    LOUISIANA. 


"OAKLEY,"  JAMES  PIRHIK'S  PLANTATION   HOUSE  NEAR  ST.  FRAXCISVILLE. 
This  and  the  above  after  photographs  by  Mr.  Stanley  dishy   Arthur,   1916. 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  319 

Again,  on  the  25th  of  that  month  is  this  entry: 

Since  I  left  Cincinnati  I  have  finished  62  drawings  of  birds 
and  plants,  3  quadrupeds,  2  snakes,  fifty  portraits  of  all  sorts, 
and  the  large  one  of  Father  Antonio,17  besides  giving  many 
lessons,  and  I  have  made  out  to  send  money  to  my  wife  suffi- 
cient for  her  and  my  Kentucky  lads,  and  to  live  in  humble  com- 
fort with  only  my  talents  and  industry,  without  one  cent  to 
begin  on.  I  sent  a  draft  to  my  wife,  and  began  to  live  in  New 
Orleans  with  forty-two  dollars,  health,  and  much  anxiety  to 
pursue  my  plan  of  collecting  all  the  birds  of  America. 

The  close  of  the  year  1821  found  Audubon  teaching 
a  few  pupils  at  New  Orleans,  where,  he  said,  his  style  of 
work  and  the  large  prices  he  received  caused  him  the 
ill  will  of  every  artist  in  the  city.  The  figure  which  he 
cut  in  the  streets,  with  his  loose  dress  of  nankeen  and 
long,  flowing  locks,  made  him  wish  to  appear  like  other 
people,  and  he  was  soon  able  to  rejoice  in  a  new  suit  of 
clothes.  Though  still  in  need  of  work,  when  he  was 
asked  to  aid  in  painting  a  panorama  of  New  Orleans, 
he  refused,  begrudging  the  time,  saying  that  he  did  not 
wish  to  see  any  other  perspective  than  that  of  the  last 
of  his  drawings. 

Having  been  from  home  for  over  a  year,  Audubon 
now  wished  to  have  his  family  about  him  again.18  His 

"  Father  Antonio  de  Sedella,  popularly  known  as  "Pere  Antoine," 
after  1791  pastor  of  St.  Louis  Cathedral;  an  idol  of  the  people,  but 
execrated  by  historians. 

"This  seditious  priest  is  a  Father  Antoine;  he  is  a  great  favorite 
of  the  Louisiana  ladies;  has  married  many  of  them,  and  christened  all 
their  children;  he  is  by  some  citizens  esteemed  an  accomplished  hypocrite, 
has  great  influence  with  the  people  of  color,  and,  report  says,  embraces 
every  opportunity  to  render  them  discontented  under  the  American  Gov- 
ernment." Executive  Journal  of  Governor  Claiborne.  See  Charles  Gayarre", 
Jfintory  of  Louisiana,  vol.  iv,  pp.  154-155  (New  Orleans,  1903). 

"This  item  occurs  in  Audubon's  journal  for  October  25;  "Rented  a 
house  in  Dauphine  street  at  seventeen  dollars  per  month,  and  determined 
to  bring  my  family  to  New  Orleans." 


320       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

plan  did  not  appeal  to  his  practical  wife,  who  had  many 
friends  at  Cincinnati,  where  she  was  assured  of  a  good 
income  through  her  teaching;  Mrs.  Audubon  also  felt 
that  to  be  constantly  shifting  about  was  anything  but 
favorable  to  the  education  of  their  children.  Her  re- 
luctance, however,  gave  way,  and  in  December  she 
joined  her  husband  in  New  Orleans,  but  only  to  find 
that  the  city  could  afford  them  no  settled  means  of  sup- 
port. The  situation  of  the  Audubon  family  during  the 
winter  of  1821-22  became  precarious  in  the  extreme,  and 
for  two  months  Audubon  gave  up  his  habit  of  journal- 
izing, one  reason  being  that  he  could  not  afford  the 
paltry  sum  necessary  to  buy  a  blank  book  for  this  pur- 
pose. 

Compelled  at  last  to  make  a  new  move,  Audubon 
started  for  Natchez,  on  the  16th  of  March,  1822,  paying 
for  his  passage  on  the  steamer  Eclat  by  doing  a  crayon 
portrait  of  the  captain  and  his  wife.  It  was  while  going 
up  the  river  at  this  time  that  he  opened  a  chest  containing 
two  hundred  of  his  drawings  to  find  them  sadly  dam- 
aged by  the  breaking  of  a  bottle  of  gunpowder,  but  the 
loss  then  sustained  was  apparently  slight  in  comparison 
with  that  which  he  had  experienced  in  an  earlier  disaster. 
To  follow  his  account  of  this  earlier  and  better  known 
incident,  when  leaving  Henderson  for  Philadelphia, 
he  carefully  placed  all  of  his  drawings  in  a  wooden 
box  and  entrusted  them  to  the  care  of  a  friend,  with  in- 
junction that  no  harm  should  befall  them;  upon  return- 
ing several  months  later,  his  treasure  chest  was  opened, 
but  only  to  reveal  that  "a  pair  of  Norway  rats  had  taken 
possession  of  the  whole,  and  had  reared  a  young  family 
amongst  the  gnawed  bits  of  paper,  which  but  a  few 
months  before  represented  nearly  a  thousand  inhabi- 
tants of  the  air."  The  heat  that  was  immediately  felt 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  321 

in  his  head,  said  the  naturalist,  was  too  great  to  be  en- 
dured, and  the  days  that  followed  were  days  of  oblivion 
to  him;  but  upon  recuperation  he  took  up  his  gun,  his 
notebook  and  his  pencils,  "and  went  forth  to  the  woods 
as  gaily  as  if  nothing  had  happened";  after  a  lapse  of 
three  years  his  portfolio  was  again  filled,  and  the  earlier 
wrork  replaced  by  better.  Audubon's  drawings  and 
plates  were  also  repeatedly  ravaged  by  fires,  but  this 
was  at  a  much  later  day. 

While  Audubon  was  engaged  in  teaching  French, 
music,  or  drawing,  now  to  private  pupils  at  Natchez, 
now  in  a  school  at  Washington,  Mississippi,  nine  miles 
away,  the  summer  of  1822  passed  with  the  outlook  as 
ominous  as  ever.  On  August  23  he  wrote:  "My  friend, 
Joseph  Mason,  left  me  today,  and  we  experienced  great 
pain  at  parting.  I  gave  him  paper  and  chalks  to  work 
his  way  with,  and  the  double  barrelled-gun  .  .  .  which 
I  had  purchased  in  Philadelphia  in  1805."  Mason,  who, 
for  a  year  and  nine  months,  was  Audubon's  aid  and  con- 
stant companion,  seems  to  have  settled  eventually  as  an 
artist  in  Philadelphia,  where  we  hear  of  him  in  1824 
and  again  in  1827.19 

In  the  following  December  Audubon  received  a 
fresh  impetus  towards  the  goal  of  his  ambition  by  the 
arrival  at  Natchez  of  a  traveling  portrait  painter,  named 
John  Stein,  who  gave  him  his  first  lessons  in  the  use 
of  oils ;  his  initial  attempt  was  the  copy  of  an  otter  from 
one  of  his  own  drawings.  Audubon  and  Stein  together 
later  painted  a  full-length  portrait  of  Father  Antonio 
which  was  sent  to  Havana.  Artists  who  have  worked 
long  in  one  medium  are  not  always  successful  in  another, 
but  those  who  have  seen  some  of  Audubon's  later  and 
better  works  in  oil,  such  as  his  large  canvas  of  the  Wild 

"See  Audubon's  letter  to  Sully,  Vol.  II,  p.  69. 


322       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Turkeys,20  must  admit  that  he  attained  a  high  degree 
of  skill.  As  will  be  seen,  this  acquisition  was  a  strong 
string  to  his  bow;  when  in  England  his  brush  helped 
largely  to  pay  for  the  issue  of  his  early  plates. 

Mrs.  Audubon,  who  joined  her  husband  in  New 
Orleans  on  December  8,  1821,  soon  felt  obliged  to  seek 
employment.  She  engaged  as  nurse  or  governess  in  the 
family  of  Mr.  Braud,  presumably  the  same  whose  wife 
and  son  had  received  instruction  in  drawing  from  the 
naturalist  the  previous  autumn,  and  remained  with  that 
family  until  September,  1822,  when  the  death  of  the 
child  that  was  placed  in  her  charge  left  her  free  to  follow 
her  husband  to  Natchez.  After  attempting  a  similar  po- 
sition in  the  home  of  a  clergyman  there  and  finding  it 
impossible  to  obtain  her  salary,  in  January,  1823,  she 
was  invited  by  the  Percys  to  West  Feliciana,21  then  a 
prosperous  cotton  district,  at  the  apex  of  the  salient 
made  by  the  neighboring  state  of  Mississippi  and  bor- 
dered on  two  sides  by  the  great  river.  Her  worth  was 
evidently  appreciated,  for  she  was  encouraged  to  estab- 
lish a  private  school  on  the  Percys'  plantation,  which 
she  conducted  successfully  for  five  years. 

Captain  Robert  Percy,  who  before  coming  to  Amer- 
ica in  1796  had  been  an  officer  in  the  British  Navy, 
was  living  at  this  time  with  his  wife  and  five  children 
at  their  plantation  of  "Weyanoke,"  on  Big  Sara  Creek, 
fifteen  miles  from  St.  Francisville ;  this  town,  owing  to 
its  large  shipments  of  cotton,  was  then  at  the  height 

20  Now  in  the  collection  of  Mr.  John  E.  Thayer,  Lancaster,  Mass. 

21  Mr.  Stanley  C.  Arthur,  whose  recent  visit  to  this  region  has  already 
been  noticed,  gathered  there  from  the  lips  of  old  residents,  some  of  whom 
were  descendants  of  those  who  had  known  the  Audubons,  a  store  of  reliable 
data  by  which  the  history  of  the  naturalist  at  this   important  phase  of 
his  life  is  revealed  in  its  true  light;  to  him  I   am  indebted  for  a  series 
of  excellent  photographs  of  the  region,  its  historic  houses  and  people,  as 
well  as  for  much  needed  information.    See  Arthur  (Bibl.  No.  230),  loc.  cit. 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  323 

of  prosperity,  and  its  population  no  doubt  exceeded 
that  of  the  present  day ;  it  now  stands  at  about  one  thou- 
sand souls.  Letters  and  journals  of  the  period  constant- 
ly refer  to  "Beechwoods,"  which  was  not  the  mansion 
house,  though  it  undoubtedly  belonged  to  the  Robert 
Percy  estate.  There  it  was  that  the  wife  of  the  natural- 
ist lived,  and  there  she  started  her  school,  for  the  benefit 
not  only  of  the  Percy  boys  and  girls,  but  also  of  a  lim- 
ited number  of  children  of  their  wealthy  neighbors;  her 
own  son,  John  Woodhouse  Audubon,  then  eleven  years 
of  age,  at  this  time  received  instruction  at  her  hands. 
The  parish  of  West  Feliciana,  at  this  early  period,  was 
one  of  the  richest  cotton-producing  sections  of  the  entire 
State;  its  care-free  planters  led  an  easy  life  until  the 
"king"  was  unceremoniously  dethroned  by  a  small,  but 
not  insignificant  insect  which  has  proved  mightier  than 
either  fire  or  sword,  namely,  the  boll-weevil;  now  many 
a  fine  old  estate  which  has  languished  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  pest  could  probably  be  bought  for  a  song. 
"Beechwoods,"  thus  devoted  to  educational  purposes, 
later  came  into  the  hands  of  Thomas  Percy,  but  the 
house,  like  that  of  "Weyanoke,"  was  long  since  burned 
to  the  ground. 

While  Mrs.  Audubon  was  establishing  her  rules  and 
authority  at  the  Percy  school,  the  naturalist  was  paint- 
ing with  Stein  at  Natchez,  and  he  remained  there  with 
his  elder  son  until  the  spring  of  1823.  At  this  period 
he  wrote  in  his  journal:  "I  had  finally  determined  to 
break  through  all  bonds,  and  follow  my  ornithological 
pursuits.  My  best  friends  solemnly  regarded  me  as  a 
madman,  and  my  wife  and  family  alone  gave  me  encour- 
agement. My  wife  determined  that  my  genius  should 
prevail,  and  that  my  final  success  as  an  ornithologist 
should  be  triumphant." 


324       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  March,  1823,  Audubon  and  friend  Stein  bought 
a  horse  and  wagon,  and  in  the  hope  of  raising  money 
through  their  joint  efforts  as  itinerant  portrait  painters, 
set  out  with  Victor  on  a  tour  of  the  Southern  States. 
This  venture,  however,  did  not  succeed,  and  after  visit- 
ing Jackson  and  a  number  of  other  towns,  they  disband- 
ed at  New  Orleans.  Audubon  then  started  north  with 
his  son  for  Louisville,  but  upon  paying  a  visit  to  his  wife 
at  the  "Beech woods"  school,  he  was  invited  by  the  Percys 
to  remain  there  for  the  summer  and  "teach  the  young 
ladies  music  and  drawing."  According  to  a  tradition 
which  has  survived  among  the  Percy  descendants,  Audu- 
bon spent  most  of  his  time  in  roaming  through  the  woods, 
but  he  also  taught  his  wife's  pupils  to  swim  in  the  large 
spring  house  at  "Weyanoke,"  where  the  water  could  be 
deepened  at  pleasure.  It  was  also  said  that  he  painted 
the  Wild  Turkeys  in  the  woods  of  Sleepy  Hollow  near 
by,  but  I  have  already  given  Audubon's  own  record  in 
regard  to  one  of  these  pictures,  and,  as  Mr.  Arthur  re- 
marks, the  places  in  Louisiana  where  he  drew  these 
famous  subjects  are  as  numerous  as  the  beds  in  which 
Lafayette  slept  when  at  New  Orleans. 

Audubon  remained  with  the  Percys  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  summer,  or  until  some  misunder- 
standing arose,  when  he  was  again  adrift  and  upon  a  sea 
of  difficulties.  While  visiting  a  plantation  near  Natchez, 
both  he  and  Victor  were  stricken  with  fever ;  his  faithful 
wife  hastened  to  them,  and  after  nursing  both  back  to 
health,  she  returned  with  them  to  the  Percy  plantation, 
where  they  remained  from  the  8th  to  the  30th  of  Sep- 
tember. 

In  the  autumn  of  1823  Audubon  was  determined  to 
visit  Philadelphia,  in  the  hope  of  finding  a  sponsor  for 
his  "Ornithology."  Although  the  work  was  then  far 


AUDUBON'S  ^NEID  325 

from  ready  for  publication,  he  felt  that  at  least  he  might 
better  his  condition,  and  with  this  end  in  view  he  sent 
his  drawings  from  Natchez  to  that  city;  a  hasty  visit 
was  made  also  to  New  Orleans,  for  the  purpose,  no 
doubt,  of  obtaining  credentials  to  possible  patrons  in 
the  East.  At  last,  on  October  3,  he  started  with  Victor 
on  the  steamer  Magnet22  for  Louisville.  Low  water 
quickly  held  them  up  after  entering  the  mouth  of  the 
Ohio,  and  they  were  obliged  to  disembark  at  the  little 
village  of  Trinity,  at  the  mouth  of  Cash  Creek,  the  scene 
of  Audubon's  misadventures  with  Rozier  thirteen  years 
before.  The  remoteness  of  the  situation  and  the  state 
of  their  funds,  which  corresponded  with  that  of  the 
river,  left  no  alternative  but  to  walk,  and  they  under- 
took to  reach  Louisville,  several  hundred  miles  distant, 
afoot.  Two  other  travelers  joined  them,  and  with  Vic- 
tor, then  a  lad  of  nearly  fourteen,  the  party  left  the  creek 
at  noon  on  October  15  and  struck  across  country  through 
the  forests  and  canebrakes.  At  Green  River,  which  was 
reached  on  the  21st,  Victor  gave  out  from  sheer  exhaus- 
tion,23 and  the  remainder  of  the  journey  was  finished 
in  a  Jersey  wagon.  At  length,  said  Audubon,  "I  en- 
tered Louisville  with  thirteen  dollars  in  my  pocket." 
At  Shippingport,  then  an  independent  town  at  the  Falls 
of  the  Ohio,  he  was  obliged  to  settle  down  for  the  win- 
ter. A  place  for  Victor  was  found  in  the  counting- 
house  of  Nicholas  A.  Berthoud,  while  the  father  under- 
took anything  that  came  to  hand,  painting  portraits, 
landscapes,  panels  for  river  boats,  and  even  street  signs, 


"One  of  the  early  steamboats  on  the  Ohio  that  had  been  built  at 
Pittsburgh,  in  1821,  by  Thomas  W.  Bakewell,  his  baother-in-law  and 
former  partner. 

"See  "A  Tough  Walk  for  a  Youth,"  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl. 
No.  2),  vol.  iii,  p.  371;  and  "The  Hospitality  of  the  Woods,'"  ibid.,  vol.  i, 
p.  383. 


326       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

so  hard  pressed  was  he  at  times  to  eke  out  a  subsistence 
for  them  both.  Yet  Audubon  was  as  sanguine  as  ever, 
and  on  November  9  he  recorded  the  resolution  "to  paint 
one  hundred  views  of  American  scenery,"  and  added: 
"I  shall  not  be  surprised  to  find  myself  seated  at  the 
foot  of  Niagara,"  a  prediction  which  was  fulfilled  in 
,  the  following  year. 

During  the  winter  spent  at  Shippingport,  Audubon 
lost  a  gentle  friend  in  Madame  Berthoud,24  the  mother 
of  Nicholas.  In  his  journal  for  January  20,  1824,  we 
read  his  emotional  words: 

I  arose  this  morning  by  the  transparent  light  which  is  the 
effect  of  the  moon  before  dawn,  and  saw  Dr.  Middleton  passing 
at  full  gallop  towards  the  white  house ;  I  followed — alas !  my 
old  friend  was  dead!  .  .  .  many  tears  fell  from  my  eyes,  ac- 
customed to  sorrow.  It  was  impossible  for  me  to  work;  my 
heart,  restless,  moved  from  point  to  point  all  round  the  com- 
pass of  my  life.  Ah  Lucy!  what  have  I  felt  to-day!  ...  I 
have  spent  it  thinking,  thinking,  learning,  weighing  my 
thoughts,  and  quite  sick  of  life.  I  wished  I  had  been  as  quiet 
as  my  venerable  friend,  as  she  lay  for  the  last  time  in  her 
room. 

24  This  lady  had  a  remarkable  history.  She  was  the  widow  of  the 
Marquis  de  Saint  Pie,  and  was  at  one  time  a  dame  d'honneur  of  Queen, 
Marie  Antoinette;  like  many  others  of  noble  birth,  she  had  fled  from  Paris 
during  the  Revolution,  and  emigrated  to  America,  where  with  her  husband 
she  assumed  the  name  of  Berthoud.  Her  son,  Nicholas  Augustus,  had 
married  Mrs.  Audubon's  sister,  Eliza  Bakewell,  in  1816. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST 

Audubon  makes  his  bow  at  Philadelphia — Is  greeted  with  plaudits  and 
cold  water — Friendship  of  Harlan,  Sully,  Bonaparte  and  Harris — 
Hostility  of  Ord,  Lawson  and  other  friends  of  Alexander  Wilson — A 
meeting  of  academicians — Visit  to  "Mill  Grove" — Exhibits  drawings  in 
New  York  and  becomes  a  member  of  the  Lyceum — At  the  Falls  of 
Niagara — In  a  gale  on  Lake  Erie — Episode  at  Meadville — Walk  to 
Pittsburgh— Tour  of  Lakes  Ontario  and  Champlain— Decides  to  take  his 
drawings  to  Europe — Descends  the  Ohio  in  a  skiff — Stranded  at  Cin- 
cinnati— Teaching  at  St.  Francisville. 

In  1824  after  five  hard  years  of  struggle  and  em- 
barrassment, Audubon  decided  that  the  time  had  come 
to  bring  his  labors  to  the  light  of  day.  At  thirty-nine, 
he  read  and  spoke  two  languages  but  was  without  ade- 
quate training  in  either;  he  had  never  written  a  line  for 
publication,  and  to  the  scientific  world  he  was  a  stranger. 
Though  without  a  definite  plan,  he  cherished  the  ardent 
hope  of  presenting  the  birds  of  his  beloved  America  as 
he  had  depicted  them,  to  the  size  of  life,  and  with  all 
the  added  interest  and  zest  that  a  natural  environment 
could  give  them. 

To  Philadelphia  the  naturalist  now  turned  his  steps, 
for  that  city  was  then  a  Mecca  for  scientific  men.  Leav- 
ing Shippingport  in  March,  he  reached  the  Quaker 
capital  on  the  fifth  day  of  April.  There  he  purchased 
a  new  suit  of  clothes,  and,  dressed  "with  extreme  neat- 
ness," paid  his  respects  to  Dr.  William  Mease,  the  one 
friend  there  whom  he  had  known  intimately  in  his 
younger  and  more  prosperous  days.  It  was  primarily 

327 


328       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

through  this  excellent  man's  interest  that  Audubon  met 
the  leading  artists  and  scientific  men  of  the  city,  in- 
cluding Thomas  Sully,  Robert  and  Rembrandt  Peale, 
Richard  Harlan,  Charles  Le  Sueur,  and  Charles  L. 
Bonaparte,  the  latter  then  a  rising  young  ornithologist 
of  one  and  twenty.  It  was  Bonaparte  who  introduced 
Audubon  to  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  where 
his  drawings  were  exhibited  and  generally  admired. 
Among  his  critics  on  that  occasion  was  George  Ord, 
who  from  their  first  interview  seems  to  have  looked  upon 
the  new  luminary  with  jealous  eyes.  Whether  this  was 
true  or  not,  there  is  no  doubt  that  Ord  became  one  of 
his  few  really  bitter  and  implacable  adversaries,  and 
not  many  days  elapsed  before  Audubon  came  to  feel 
that  many  in  Philadelphia  would  be  glad  to  see  him 
return  to  the  backwoods  of  the  Middle  West,  from 
which,  like  an  apple  of  Sodom,  he  seemed  suddenly  to 
have  dropped  into  their  midst.  Those  who  were  most 
interested  in  the  continued  sale  and  success  of  Wilson's 
Ornithology,  he  declared,  advised  him  not  to  publish 
anything,  and  threw  not  only  cold  water  but  ice  upon 
all  his  plans.  Thus  began  that  unseemly  rivalry,  fos- 
tered for  many  years  by  George  Ord  in  this  country, 
between  the  friends  of  Alexander  Wilson  and  those  of 
John  James  Audubon,  the  dead  embers  of  which  are  oc- 
casionally stirred  even  to  this  day.1 

Ord,  who  was  about  Audubon's  own  age,  was  a  quiet, 
persistent,  and  unassuming  worker,  held  in  high  esteem 
by  many  of  his  associates.  Audubon  seems  to  have  done 
his  best  to  conciliate  him  then  and  at  a  later  day,  but 
all  to  no  purpose ;  Dr.  Harlan  once  advised  him  to  give 
up  the  attempt,  since  Ord,  he  declared,  had  no  heart 
for  friendship,  having  been  denied  that  blessing  by 

1  See  Chapter  XIV. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          329 

nature  herself.  Ord,  as  we  have  seen,  had  edited  the 
eighth  and  written  the  ninth,  or  concluding,  volume  of 
Wilson's  American  Ornithology,  as  well  as  a  life  of  its 
author;  the  appearance  of  a  new  star  in  the  ornithologi- 
cal horizon  may  not  have  been  a  welcome  sight.  At 
all  events,  we  soon  find  him  engaged  upon  a  new  edition 
of  Wilson's  work.2  Ord  had  objected  to  Audubon's 
method  of  combining  plants  and  other  accessories  with 
his  drawings  of  birds,  a  criticism  that  in  the  case  of 
purely  technical  works  could  be  easily  sustained,  and 
some  of  his  later  charges,  though  carried  too  far,  were 
not  wholly  without  foundation.3 

Bonaparte,4  on  the  other  hand,  was  captivated  by 

'This  was  the  third  edition  of  the  American  Ornithology,  issued  by 
Messrs.  Collins  &  Company  in  New  York  and  by  Harrison  Hall  of  Phila- 
delphia, in  three  octavo  volumes,  with  an  atlas  of  76  plates  colored  by 
hand,  in  1828-9.  Mr.  Hall,  who  appears  to  have  been  the  person  most 
interested  financially  in  this  edition,  was  a  brother  of  James  Hall,  author 
of  a  notorious  review  in  which  this  work  was  praised  at  the  expense  of 
Audubon,  who  was  viciously  attacked  (see  Bibliography,  No.  123).  Friends 
of  Audubon  repeatedly  asserted  that  as  soon  as  his  popularity  and  success 
began  to  check  the  sales  of  Wilson's  work,  Ord  and  a  few  others,  aided  by 
interested  publishers,  began  a  systematic  series  of  attacks,  some  notice  of 
which  is  taken  in  Chapter  XXVIII. 

•See  Chapter  XIV. 

4  Charles  Lucien  Jules  Laurent  Bonaparte,  Prince  of  Canino  and 
Musignano,  the  eldest  son  of  Lucien,  and  nephew  of  Napoleon,  Bonaparte, 
was  born  at  Paris  in  1803,  and  died  there  in  1857.  At  this  time  he 
was  settled  with  his  uncle  and  father-in-law,  Joseph  Bonaparte,  former  King 
of  Spain,  at  Philadelphia,  and  there  and  at  Bordentown,  New  Jersey, 
where  Joseph  had  an  estate,  he  undertook  the  study  of  American  birds. 
His  best  known  scientific  works  are:  American  Ornithology,  or  the  Natural 
History  of  the  Birds  of  the  United  States,  not  Given  by  Wilson,  4  volumes, 
quarto,  with  27  colored  plates,  Philadelphia,  1825-1833;  and  Iconographica 
della  Fauna  Italica,  Rome,  1833-1841.  In  1828  he  retired  to  Italy,  where 
he  was  devoted  to  literary  and  scientific  pursuits.  He  was  an  early  sub- 
scriber to  Audubon's  Birds  of  America,  but  their  relations  were  somewhat 
strained  on  the  publication  of  the  Ornithological  Biography  in  1831  (see 
Chapter  XXIX).  Bonaparte  later  entered  politics  in  Italy,  and  was 
leader  of  the  republican  party  at  Rome  in  1848  and  1849;  after  having  been 
expelled  from  France  by  the  order  of  Louis  Napoleon,  he  was  permitted 
to  return  in  1850,  and  became  director  of  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  in  Paris. 

He  was  a  closet  naturalist  rather  than  a  field  student,  but  did  much 
for  the  reform  of  nomenclature.  In  his  Ornithology  the  number  of  American 
birds  was  raised  to  366,  nearly  one  hundred  having  been  added  since  the 


330       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Audubon's  drawings  and  anxious  to  secure  his  services 
for  his  own  work,  then  well  in  hand.  This  was  the 
American  Ornithology,  for  which  Titian  R.  Peale  was 
then  making  the  drawings,  and  Thomas  Lawson,  who 
had  been  Wilson's  engraver,  was  engaged  on  the  plates ; 
though  quite  distinct  in  itself,  this  was  much  in  the  style 
of  Wilson's  earlier  work,  of  which  it  was  virtually  a 
continuation.  When  Bonaparte  introduced  Audubon 
to  these  men,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  meeting  was 
not  productive  of  the  best  of  feeling  on  either  side. 
Peale's  stiff  and  rather  conventional  portraits  of  birds 
naturally  failed  to  awaken  enthusiasm  in  "the  trader 
naturalist,"  as  some  who  looked  upon  him  as  a  rival 
rather  contemptuously  called  him.  The  interview  with 
Lawson,  if  correctly  reported  by  his  friend,5  shows  that 
his  interest  could  not  have  been  of  the  most  disinterested 
sort.  "Lawson  told  me,"  said  this  reporter,  "that  he 
spoke  freely  of  the  pictures,  and  said  that  they  were  ill 
drawn,  not  true  to  nature,  and  anatomically  incorrect." 
Thereupon  Bonaparte  defended  them  warmly,  saying 
that  he  would  buy  them  and  that  Lawson  should  en- 
grave them.  "You  may  buy  them,"  said  the  Scotchman, 
"but  I  will  not  engrave  them  .  .  .  because  ornithology 
requires  truth  in  the  forms,  and  correctness  in  the  lines. 
Here  are  neither."  Other  meetings  are  said  to  have  fol- 
lowed, but  to  have  ended  only  in  mutual  dislike.  Never- 
theless, one  of  Audubon's  drawings  was  engraved  by 
Lawson  and  appeared  in  Bonaparte's  work,6  but  most 

work  of  Wilson  was  revised  by  Ord,  but  he  added  only  two  that  were 
new,  Cooper's  Hawk,  (Accipiter  cooperi),  named  after  William  Cooper  of 
New  York,  and  Say's  Phoebe  (Sayornis  saya),  dedicated  to  Thomas  Say,  and 
first  procured  by  Titian  R.  Peale  in  the  Rocky  Mountain  districts  of  the 
Far  West.  Perhaps  his  most  important  technical  work,  the  Conspectus 
Generum  Avium,  begun  in  1850,  was  incomplete  at  the  time  of  his  death. 

6  William  Dunlap,  History  of  the  Rise  and  Progress  of  the  Arts  of 
Design  in  the  United  States  (Bibl.  No.  59),  vol.  ii,  p.  402  (New  York,  1834). 

"The   Boat-tailed  Crackle,  vol.  i,  plate  iv. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST  331 

of  the  figures  in  Bonaparte's  concluding  volumes  were 
by  the  hand  of  a  German  named  Alexander  Rider.  It 
was  doubtless  a  fortunate  circumstance  that  the  preju- 
dice and  obstinacy  of  this  overbearing  Scot  was  a  bar 
to  any  further  absorption  of  Audubon's  talents.7 

Audubon  met  at  this  time  a  more  appreciative  en- 
graver  in  Mr.  Fairman,  who  urged  him  to  take  his  draw- 
ings to  Europe  and  have  them  engraved  in  a  superior 
style;  on  July  12  the  naturalist  wrote  that  he  had  drawn 
"for  Mr.  Fairman  a  small  grouse  to  be  put  on  a  bank- 
note belonging  to  the  State  of  New  Jersey."  By  some 
lucky  chance  this  incident  brought  him  the  acquaintance 
of  Edward  Harris,8  whom  he  met  that  summer  in  Phila- 
delphia, and  who  became  one  of  his  most  constant  and 
disinterested  friends.  It  was  Harris  who  a  few  days 
after  their  meeting  took  all  of  the  drawings  which  Au- 
dubon had  for  sale  and  at  the  artist's  own  prices ; 9  who 
for  years  was  continually  sending  him  rare  or  desirable 
specimens  of  birds;  who  accompanied  him  through  the 
Southern  States  to  Florida  in  1837  and  on  the  famous 

7  He  seems,  however,  to  have  supplied  Bonaparte  liberally  with  notes, 
for  after  devoting  fifteen  pages  to  the  biography  of  the  Wild  Turkey, 
Audubon  said:  "A  long  account  of  this  remarkable  bird  has  already 
been  given  in  Bonaparte's  American  Ornithology,  volume  I.  As  that 
account  was  in  a  great  measure  derived  from  notes  furnished  by  myself, 
you  need  not  be  surprised,  good  reader,  to  find  it  often  in  accordance 
with  the  above."  Ornithological  Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  16. 

•Edward  Harris  was  born  at  Morristown,  New  Jersey,  in  1799,  where 
he  died  in  1863.  Without  the  incentive  to  earn  money  or  the  ambition 
to  acquire  fame,  he  lived  the  life  of  a  gentleman  of  leisure,  devoted  to 
natural  history,  to  sport  and  to  the  cultivation  of  his  paternal  acres.  He 
had  the  gift  of  friendship,  was  widely  traveled,  wrote  charming  letters, 
and  kept  careful  records  of  his  observations,  but  rarely  published  any- 
thing. The  breeding  of  fine  stock  was  one  of  his  hobbies,  and  as  a 
result  of  a  journey  to  Europe  in  1839,  when  he  visited  a  horse  fair  in 
Normandy,  he  is  credited  with  having  first  introduced  the  Norman  breed 
into  America.  "The  beneficent  results  of  his  quiet,  unobtrusive  life,"  says 
an  appreciative  biographer,  "reach  down  to  our  time,  and,  after  half  a 
century,  we  are  glad  that  Edward  Harris  lived."  See  biographical  sketch 
by  George  Spencer  Morris,  in  Cassinia,  vol.  vi  (Philadelphia,  1902). 

•See  Chapter  XII,  p.  179. 


AN  EAELY  LETTER  OF  ATJDUBON  TO  EDWARD  HARRIS,  DATED  JULY  14,  1824    AT  THE 
BEGINNING    OF    THEIR    LIFE-LONG    FRIENDSHIP 

From  the  Jeanes  MSS.     Audubon's  last  letter  to  Edward  Harris,  from  the 
same  source,  is  reproduced  in  Volume  II,  page  287. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          333 

Missouri  River  Expedition  in  1843.  Edward  Harris 
became  a  patron  of  science  through  his  friendship  with 
scientific  men,  and  many  besides  Audubon  were  indebted 
to  him  for  judicious  advice  as  well  as  more  substantial 
benefits. 

The  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences,  founded  in  1812, 
was  well  established  at  this  time,  and  its  rapidly  grow- 
ing Museum  was  already  the  largest  and  most  valuable 
in  the  New  World;  ornithology  was  a  favored  subject, 
and  the  Academy's  roll  embraced  every  American  pio- 
neer worker  of  note  in  the  entire  field  of  the  natural 
sciences.  The  following  account  of  a  meeting  of  the 
Academy,  held  on  October  11,  1825,  when  Ord  presided, 
has  been  preserved  in  a  letter  of  the  period : 1( 

A  few  evenings  since  I  was  associated  with  a  society  of  gen- 
tlemen, members  of  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences.  There 
were  present  fifteen  or  twenty.  Among  the  number  were  Le 
Sueur,  Rafinesque,  Say,  Peale,  Pattison,  Harlan,  and  Charles 
Lucien  Bonaparte. 

Among  this  collection  life  was  most  strikingly  exemplified: 
Le  Sueur,  with  a  countenance  weather-beaten  and  worn,  looked 
on,  for  the  muscles  of  his  ironbound  visage  seemed  as  incapable 
of  motion,  as  those  on  the  medals  struck  in  the  age  of  Julius 
Caesar.  Rafinesque  has  a  fine  black  eye,  rather  bald  and  black 
hair,  and  withal  is  rather  corpulent.  I  was  informed  that  he 
was  a  native  of  Constantinople;  at  present  he  lives  in  Ken- 
tucky. Dr.  Harlan  is  a  spruce  young  man.  .  .  .  Peale  is 
the  son  of  the  original  proprietor  of  the  Philadelphia  Museum, 
and  one  who  visited  the  Rocky  Mountains  with  Major  Long; 
he  is  a  young  man,  and  has  no  remarkable  indications  of 
countenance  to  distinguish  him.  Say,  who  was  his  companion 

"Written  by  Dr.  Edmund  Porter  of  Frenchtown,  New  Jersey,  to 
Dr.  Thomas  Miner  of  Haddam,  Connecticut,  on  October  25,  1825.  See 
Witmer  Stone,  "Some  Philadelphia  Ornithological  Collections  and  Col- 
lectors, 1784-1850,"  The  Auk,  vol.  xvi  (New  York, 


334      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

in  the  same  expedition,  is  an  extremely  interesting  man;  to 
him  I  am  particularly  obligated  for  showing  me  their  Museum 
and  Library.  I  think  he  told  me  that  their  society  had  pub- 
lished nine  volumes.  .  .  .  Bonaparte  is  the  son  of  Lucien  Bona- 
parte and  nephew  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon ;  he  is  a  little  set, 
black-eyed  fellow,  quite  talkative,  and  withal  interesting  and 
companionable. 

Among  the  working  naturalists  at  Philadelphia  Dr. 
Richard  Harlan  was  possibly  one  whose  friendship  was 
most  valuable  to  Audubon;  the  artist  from  whom  he 
received  most  encouragement  was  Thomas  Sully,  the 
portrait  painter,  who  took  him  into  his  studio  and  gave 
him  lessons  in  the  use  of  oils.  Sully  was  one  of  those 
who  saw  the  good  side  of  Audubon's  character,  discerned 
his  talent,  and  predicted  for  him  a  great  future;  at  a 
later  day  Sully  was  able  to  rejoice  in  finding  his  predic- 
tion amply  fulfilled.11 

Convinced  that  the  advice  which  Fairman  and  Bona- 
parte had  given  him  was  sound,  Audubon  decided  to 
look  to  Europe  for  a  publisher  of  his  Birds,  and  with  this 
end  in  view,  set  hard  to  work  at  his  drawings.  "I  had 
some  pupils  offered,"  he  said,  "at  a  dollar  per  lesson; 
but  I  found  the  citizens  unwilling  to  pay  for  art,  al- 
though they  affected  to  patronize  it.  I  exhibited  my 

"Thomas  Sully  (1783-1872),  Englishman  by  birth,  who  had  come  to 
America  at  an  early  age,  and  like  Audubon  had  waged  a  bitter  struggle 
before  success  was  achieved,  became  one  of  the  first  portrait  painters  of  the 
early  American  School. 

In  1831  Sully  wrote  to  Audubon  that  his  success  in  England  and 
France  had  charmed  all  of  his  friends  in  America,  that  it  was  like  a 
personal  triumph  to  them,  and  that  it  would  soon  silence  his  few  remain- 
ing enemies;  "Be  true  to  yourself,  Audubon,"  he  added,  "and  never  doubt 
of  success."  It  has  been  said  that  when  Audubon  first  came  to  Philadel- 
phia in  1824  he  applied  to  Sully  for  instruction,  saying  that  he  wished 
to  become  a  portrait  painter  (see  Dunlap,  op.  cit.);  again  that  he  was 
ready  to  sell  his  drawings  to  the  highest  bidder;  but  the  records  of  his 
journals  from  1820  onward  are  sufficiently  consistent  to  show  what  his 
purpose  really  was. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          335 

drawings  for  a  week,  but  found  the  show  did  not  pay, 
and  so  determined  to  remove  myself."  Audubon  re- 
mained in  Philadelphia  until  August,  and  while  in  doubt 
as  to  what  step  he  should  take  next,  he  was  cheered  by 
a  visit  to  "Mill  Grove,"  made  in  the  carriage  of  his 
Quaker  friend,  Reuben  Haines.  To  quote  his  journal: 

As  we  entered  the  avenue,  which  led  to  the  farm,  every 
step  brought  to  my  mind  the  memory  of  past  years, 
and  I  was  bewildered  by  the  recollections  until  we  reached  the 
door  of  the  house,  which  had  once  been  the  residence  of  my 
father  as  well  as  of  myself.  The  cordial  welcome  of  Mr.  Wether- 
ill,  the  owner,  was  extremely  agreeable.  After  resting  a  few 
moments,  I  abruptly  took  my  hat  and  ran  wildly  to  the  woods, 
to  the  grotto  where  I  first  heard  from  my  wife  that  she  was 
not  indifferent  to  me.  It  had  been  torn  down,  and  some  stones 
carted  away;  but  raising  my  eyes  towards  heaven,  I  repeated 
the  promise  we  had  mutually  made.  We  dined  at  Mill  Grove, 
and  as  I  entered  the  parlor  I  stood  motionless  for  a  moment 
on  the  spot  where  my  wife  and  myself  were  forever  joined. 

In  this  dramatic  rehearsal  the  naturalist  clearly  im- 
plies that  he  was  married  in  the  parlor  of  his  own  home, 
but  his  excellent  wife,  who  was  surely  in  this  instance 
the  better  authority,  explicitly  states  that  their  marriage 
took  place  in  her  father's  house  at  "Fatland  Ford." 
Since  Audubon  was  in  the  habit  of  sending  extracts 
from  his  journal  to  his  family,  it  is  clear  that  errors 
of  this  sort  were  the  simple  result  of  an  impulsive  tem- 
perament; the  moment  his  imagination  pictured  his 
wedding  as  having  taken  place  in  his  old  abode,  down 
went  the  jotting  in  the  journal,  which  was  written  at 
odd  moments  anywhere,  often  at  late  hours,  and  with 
no  care  in  revision  or  thought  of  future  publication. 

On  August  1,  1824,  Audubon  recorded  in  his  diary 


336       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

that  he  had  left  Philadelphia  for  New  York  on  the  day 
before,  "in  good  health,  free  from  debt,  and  free  from 
anxiety  about  the  future."  Sully  had  given  him  glow- 
ing letters  of  introduction  to  Gilbert  Stuart,  Washing- 
ton Allston  and  Colonel  Trumbull,  but  then  as  now  mid- 
summer was  not  a  propitious  time  to  find  city  people 
at  home,  and  he  began  to  consider  the  advisability  of 
visiting  both  Albany  and  Boston.  Alternately  elated 
or  depressed  by  the  prospects  of  the  day  or  the  hour, 
Audubon  wrote  on  August  4  that  he  had  called  with  a 
letter  of  introduction  on  Dr.  Mitchell,  who  had  given 
him  "a  kind  letter  to  his  friend  Dr.  Barnes."  This  hur- 
riedly penciled  note  from  the  Nestor  of  American  sci- 
ence of  that  day  has  been  carefully  preserved,  and  reads 
as  follows : 12 

Dr.  Samuel  L.  Mitchell  to  Dr.  Barnes 

Mr.  A.  who  brings  strong  testimonial  of  excellence  from 
our  friends  in  Pha  is  now  sitting  with  me — I  have  been  de- 
lighted and  instructed  by  a  Display  of  his  Port  Folio  contain- 
ing Drawings  Done  from  Life  of  North  American  Birds  and 
illustrating  the  Connect,  of  ornithology  with  Botany,  he  has 
Superior  attainments  &  skill  in  the  natural  sciences  which  he 
has  cultivated  for  more  than  20  y. 

he  wishes  to  show  his  Elegant  performances  to  the  Mem- 
bers of  the  Lyceum  and  to  be  made  a  Member  of  that  Society — 
it  is  his  intention  to  Leave  this  City  for  Boston  on  Sunday 
morning.  Meanwhile  I  recommend  him  to  your  good  offices. 

Yours  Truly  as  ever 

SAM,  L.  MITCHELL 
Aug  t  4  t  1824 

12  For  the  favor  of  examining  a  collection  of  interesting  autograph 
letters  written  to  Audubon  in  Europe  and  America,  some  of  which  are 
here  reproduced,  I  am  indebted  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Henry  R.  Rowland, 
secretary  of  the  Buffalo  Society  of  Natural  Sciences.  This  note  was  written 
on  a  narrow  strip  of  manila-colored  drawing  paper. 


NOTE  OF  DB.  SAMUEL  L.  MITCHELL,  WRITTEN   HURRIEDLY  IN  PENCIL,  RECOMMEND- 
ING  AUDUBON   TO    HIS    FRIEND,   DR.    BARNES,   AUGUST   4,    1824 

From  the  Rowland  MSS. 


337 


338       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Dr.  Mitchell,  who  was  the  father  and  first  president 
of  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  had  been  a  friend 
of  young  Audubon  when  he  was  clerking  in  New  York 
in  1807.13  His  recommendation  was  accepted,  and  the 
naturalist  was  enrolled  on  the  Lyceum's  list  of  mem- 
bers; to  justify  his  election,  two  papers,  representing 
his  first  contribution  to  ornithology,  were  presented  to 
the  Society,  and  appeared  in  its  Annals  of  that  year.14 
Audubon  visited  the  Lyceum  with  Dr.  DeKay  and  ex- 
hibited his  drawings,  but  said  that  he  felt  awkward  and 
uncomfortable.  On  August  3  he  called  on  John  Van- 
derlyn,  the  artist,  examined  his  pictures,  and  "saw  the 
medal  given  him  by  Napoleon,  but  was  not  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  he  was  a  great  painter."  Upon 
meeting  Vanderlyn  again  a  little  later,  he  was  asked  to 
sit  for  a  portrait  of  Andrew  Jackson;  his  journal  entry 
regarding  the  incident  was  as  follows: 15 

August  10.  My  spirits  low,  and  I  long  for  the  woods  again ; 
but  the  prospect  of  becoming  better  known  prompts  me  to 
remain  another  day.  Met  the  artist  Vanderlyn,  who  asked  me 
to  give  him  a  sitting  for  a  portrait  of  General  Jackson,  since 
my  figure  considerably  resembled  that  of  the  General,  more  than 
any  he  had  ever  seen.  I  likewise  sketched  my  landlady  and 
child,  and  filled  my  time. 

The  context  shows  that  the  sitting  was  given,  and 
as  Mr.  Stanley  C.  Arthur  remarks,  Vanderlyn's  por- 
trait, which  now  hangs  in  the  City  Hall  in  New  York, 
shows  "Old  Hickory"  from  the  shoulders  up,  but  from 
the  shoulders  down  it  is  John  James  Audubon. 

On  the  14th  Audubon  wrote  cheerfully  to  Sully: 

13  See  Chapter  XL 

"See  Bibliography,  Nos.  15  and  16. 

15  See  Lucy  Audubon,  ed.,  Life  of  John  James  Audubon,  the  Naturalist 
(Bibl.  No.  73),  p.  107. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          339 

Audubon  to  Thomas  Sully 

My  reception  in  New  York  has  surpassed  my  hopes.  I 
have  been  most  kindly  [received],  and  had  I  seen  Col.  Trumball, 
I  would  have  found  him  the  gentleman  you  represented,  but  his 
absence  at  Saratoga  Springs  has  deprived  me  of  that  pleas- 
ure. 

New  York  is  now  an  immense  city.  Strangers  are  received 
here  with  less  reserve  generally  than  at  Philadelphia.  I  found 
the  Academy  well  supplied  with  paintings,  and  sculptures  of  the 
Greek  masters.  The  steam  boats  of  the  Sweet  Ohio,  with  all 
their  swiftness  of  motion  and  beautiful  forms,  do  not  interest 
the  eye  like  those  that  are  here  tossing  over  the  foaming  bil- 
lows with  the  grace  of  the  wild  swan.  Were  I  a  painter — ah 

could  I,  like  ,  carry  in  my  mind's  eye  all  my  mind  feels 

when  looking  at  the  Battery  at  the  moon's  tender  reflections  on 
the  farthest  sails,  forcing  the  vessel  they  move  with  the  very 
wind's  heart, — express  as  he  does  the  quick  moving  tar  hauling 
in  a  reef  at  the  yard's  end, — and  make  on  the  canvas  a  noble 
commander  speak,  as  you  have  done;  then,  my  dear  friend,  I 
could  show  you  New  York's  harbor  and  all  its  beauties.  .  .  . 

I  cannot  part  with  that  Fair  City  [Philadelphia]  this  soon; 
I  cannot  help  thanking  Fairman,  Peale,  Neagle,  Le  Sueur,  and 
many  others  besides  Me  Murty  for  their  attentions  to  me. 
Should  you  see  honest  Quaker  Haines,  beg  him  to  believe  me 
his  friend;  should  you  see  Mr.  Ord,  tell  him  I  never  was  his 
enemy.  Think  of  me  some  time,  and  accept  the  truest  best 
wishes  of 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 

I  leave  for  Boston  tomorrow.  Should  you  please  to  write 
to  me,  direct  to  Care  of  Messrs.  Anshutz  &  Co,  Pittsburgh, 
where  I  shall  be  in  about  40  days. 

The  very  next  day  Audubon  changed  his  plans  and 
sailed  up  the  Hudson  to  Albany,  where  he  hoped  to  meet 
De  Witt  Clinton,  then  at  the  height  of  his  fame,  who  in 
the  course  of  his  great  undertakings  had  found  time  to 


340       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

write  letters  on  the  natural  history  and  antiquities  of  his 
State,  and  Dr.  Beck,  the  botanist.  Failing  to  find  either 
at  home,  Audubon  was  compelled  by  the  depleted  state 
of  his  pocketbook  to  give  up  his  plan  of  visiting  Boston, 
and  being  determined  to  see  Niagara  Falls,  he  took  pas- 
sage on  a  canal  boat  to  Buffalo  instead.  The  Falls 
were  reached  on  the  24th  of  August,  and  it  was  then,  on 
recording  his  name  at  an  hotel,  that  Audubon  wrote  un- 
derneath: "Who,  like  Wilson,  will  ramble,  but  never, 
like  that  great  man,  die  under  the  lash  of  a  book- 
seller." 16  Upon  his  first  view  of  the  Falls  he  was  satis- 
fied that  Niagara  never  had  been  and  never  could  be 
painted.  He  wanted  to  cross  the  bridge  at  Goat  Island 
but  was  deterred  by  the  necessity  of  economy.  Visitors 
it  seems,  had  already  learned  to  venture  under  a  small 
section  of  the  American  Falls,  and  Audubon  said  that 
while  looking  through  the  falling  sheet  of  water,  "at 
their  feet  thousands  of  eels  were  lying  side  by  side,  trying 
vainly  to  ascend  the  torrent."  After  strolling  through 
the  village  to  find  some  bread  and  milk,  the  naturalist 
recorded  that  he  ate  a  good  dinner  for  twelve  cents,  and 
that  he  went  to  bed  "thinking  of  Franklin  eating  his 
roll  in  the  streets  of  Philadelphia,  of  Goldsmith  travel- 
ing by  the  aid  of  his  musical  powers,  and  of  other  great 
men  who  had  worked  their  way  through  hardships  and 
difficulties  to  fame,  and  fell  asleep,  hoping,  by  perse- 
vering industry,  to  make  a  name  for  himself  among  his 
countrymen." 

The  schooner  from  Buffalo  to  Erie,  Pennsylvania, 
on  which  Audubon  had  taken  deck  passage,  as  he  was 
unable  to  afford  a  berth  in  the  cabin,  was  caught  in  a 
violent  gale  on  the  way  and  was  obliged  to  anchor  in 
the  harbor  of  Presque  Isle.  "It  was  on  the  29th  of  Au- 

"  See  Vol.  I,  p.  219. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          341 

gust,  1824,"  his  diary  reads,  "and  never  shall  I  forget 
that  morning."  Captain  Judd,  of  the  United  States 
Navy,  had  sent  a  gig  with  six  men  to  its  relief,  and 
"my  drawings,"  he  continues,  "were  put  into  the  boat 
with  the  greatest  care.  We  shifted  into  it,  and  seated 
ourselves  according  to  direction.  Our  brave  fellows 
pulled  hard,  and  every  moment  brought  us  nearer  the 
American  shore;  I  leaped  upon  it  with  elated  heart. 
My  drawings  were  safely  landed,  and  for  anything  else 
I  cared  little  at  the  moment." 

At  this  point  Audubon  set  out  with  a  fellow  traveler, 
who  was  also  an  artist,  for  Meadville,  Pennsylvania. 
The  earliest  version  of  his  journal 17  which  gives  an 
account  of  this  experience  reads  as  follows: 

On  the  shore  of  upper  Canada,  my  money  was  stolen.  The 
thief,  perhaps,  imagined  it  was  of  little  importance  to  a  natural- 
ist. To  repine  at  what  could  not  be  helped  would  have  been 
unmanly.  I  felt  satisfied  Providence  had  relief  in  store.  Seven 
dollars  and  a  half  were  left  to  us,  two  persons,  1500  miles  from 
home,  at  the  entrance  of  Presque — Isle  Harbor. 

Five  dollars  was  paid  to  their  driver,  and  when  they 
reached  Meadville,  and  entered  J.  E.  Smith's  "Travel- 
er's Rest,"  they  had  but  one  hundred  and  fifty  cents  be- 
tween them.  No  time  was  to  be  lost,  and  Audubon  at 
once  started  out  with  his  portfolio  and  his  artist  friend 
to  look  for  work: 

I  walked  up  the  Main  Street,  looking  for  heads,  till  I  saw 
a  Hollander  gentleman  in  a  store,  who  looked  as  if  he  might 
want  a  sketch.  I  begged  him  to  allow  me  to  sit  down.  This 
granted,  I  remained  perfectly  silent  till  he  very  soon  asked: 
"What  is  in  that  portfolio"?  This  sounded  well;  I  opened  it. 

"  Probably  first  published  in  a  newspaper,  and  reprinted  in  pamphlet 
form,  dated  "April  9,  1846";  see  Bibliography,  No.  42. 


342       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

He  complimented  me  on  my  drawings  of  birds  and  flowers. 
Showing  him  a  portrait  of  my  Best  Friend,  I  asked  him  if  he 
would  like  one  of  himself.  He  said  "Yes,  and  I  will  exert  my- 
self to  gain  as  many  more  customers  as  I  can." 

According  to  a  story  current  at  Meadville  long  after 
the  event  Audubon  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Bene- 
dict, a  merchant,  lately  come  from  New  Haven,  whose 
attractive  daughter,  named  Jennett,18  was  then  one  and 
twenty ;  his  family  lived  at  the  village  tavern,  called  the 
"Torbett  House,"  in  which  Mr.  Augustus  Colson  had 
a  store.  It  was  Mr.  Colson,  to  whom  Audubon  probably 
refers,  who  responded  'generously  to  his  appeal  for  work, 
and  called  in  a  number  of  his  young  friends  as  possible 
patrons.  Among  them  was  Miss  Jennett  Benedict,  and 
the  naturalist,  attracted  by  her  agreeable  manners  and 
pleasing  appearance,  asked  permission  to  make  a  por- 
trait-sketch, saying  that  he  would  pay  for  the  privilege 
by  presenting  her  with  a  copy.  This  was 'evidently  good 
business  enterprise,  for,  according  to  the  story,  a  grain 
bin  in  the  Colson  store  was  soon  converted  into  a  studio, 
and  Audubon  was  rewarded  by  a  number  of  sitters. 
Here  is  his  account  from  the  record  just  quoted: 

Next  day  I  entered  the  artist's  room,  by  crazy  steps  of  the 
store-garret ;  four  windows  faced  each  other  at  right  angles ;  in 
a  corner  was  a  cat  nursing,  among  rags  for  a  paper-mill ;  hogs- 

18 Miss  Jennett  Benedict  in  1836  became  Mrs.  Butts;  the  crayon  por- 
trait which  Audubon  made  at  this  time  was  carefully  treasured  by  her 
daughter,  the  late  Mrs.  Frederick  A.  Sterling,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  to  whose 
kindness  I  am  indebted  for  the  privilege  of  reproducing  it.  This  original 
drawing,  which  is  presumably  a  fair  specimen  of  Audubon's  itinerant 
portraiture,  was  made  on  a  sheet  of  buff,  water-marked  paper,  14y2  by 
10y2  inches  in  dimensions;  it  was  outlined  in  pencil,  and  carefully  finished 
in  crayon-point;  its  legend  "J.  J.  Audubon-1824,"  was  inserted  in  pencil, 
in  a  very  fine  hand  at  the  lower  margin  of  the  sketch.  The  Colson 
store  was  at  the  corner  of  Water  Street  and  south  of  Cherry  Alley.  For 
an  account  of  this  incident  I  am  indebted  to  Mrs.  Sterling,  and  to  an 
article  in  the  Tribune  Republican,  of  Meadville,  for  February  7,  1907. 


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DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          343 

heads  of  oats,  Dutch  toys  on  the  floor,  a  large  drum,  a  bassoon, 
fur  caps  along  the  walls,  a  hammock  and  rolls  of  leather. 
Closing  the  extra  windows  with  blankets,  I  procured  a  painter's 

light. 

A  young  man  sat  to  try  my  skill;  his  phiz  was  approved; 
then  the  merchant;  the  room  became  crowded.  In  the  evening 
I  joined  him  in  music  on  the  flute  and  violin.  My  fellow  travel- 
ler also  had  made  two  sketches.  We  wrote  a  page  or  two  in 
our  journals,  and  went  to  rest. 

The  next  day  was  spent  as  yesterday.  Our  pockets  re- 
plenished, we  walked  to  Pittsburgh  in  two  days. 

A  month  was  spent  at  Pittsburgh,  where  Audubon 
searched  the  country  for  birds  and  continued  his  draw- 
ings. While  there  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  the 
Reverend  John  Henry  Hopkins,  a  man  of  superb  ap- 
pearance and  rare  conversational  and  oratorical  powers, 
later  known  as  the  learned  and  versatile  first  Episcopal 
Bishop  of  Vermont.  Audubon  attended  some  of  the 
ministrations  of  this  remarkable  man,  through  whose 
influence,  he  said,  "I  was  brought  to  think,  more  than 
I  usually  did,  of  religious  matters ;  but  I  never  think  of 
churches  without  feeling  sick  at  heart  at  the  sham  and 
show  of  some  of  their  professors.  To  repay  evil  with 
kindness  is  the  religion  that  I  was  taught  to  practice, 
and  this  will  forever  be  my  rule." 

In  the  autumn  of  1824  Audubon  planned  another 
visit  to  the  Great  Lakes  in  search  of  new  birds,  and 
tried  to  induce  his  friend,  Mr.  Edward  Harris,  to  ac- 
company him.  While  wandering  in  the  forests  along 
those  lakes  he  thought  out  the  plan  which  was  finally 
followed  in  the  publication  of  his  Birds  of  America: 

Chance,  and  chance  alone,  had  divided  my  drawings  into 
three  different  classes,  depending  upon  the  magnitude  of  the 
objects  to  be  represented;  and,  although  I  did  not  at  that  time 


344      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

possess  all  the  specimens  necessary,  I  arranged  them  as  well  as 
I  could  into  parcels  of  five  plates — I  improved  the  whole  as 
much  as  was  in  my  power;  and  as  I  daily  retired  farther  from 
the  haunts  of  man,  determined  to  leave  nothing  undone,  which 
my  labor,  my  time,  or  my  purse  could  accomplish.19 

Audubon's  journal  kept  on  the  lakes  has  been  lost, 
but  that  journey  was  fresh  in  mind  when  he  wrote  the 
following  letter  to  Edward  Harris.20 

Audubon  to  Edward  Harris 

BEECHWOODS.    Near  BAYOU  SARA,  LA. 
Jany.  31  1825. 

Surely  I  have  not  dismerited  your  esteem;  when  on  the 
Lakes,  both  Ontario  and  Champlain,  I  wrote  to  you — again 
from  Pittsburgh,  all  without  any  answer,  and  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  I  have  been  either  abandoned  or  forgotten  by  all  those 
other  persons  who  had  promised  to  keep  up  a  correspondence 
with  me.  .  .  . 

The  country  I  visited  was  new,  in  great  measure,  to  me.  I 
have  been  delighted  with  the  tour,  but  will  forever  regret  that 
your  sister's  indisposition  could  not  allow  you  time  to  augment 
my  pleasure  by  your  company. 

[Audubon  offers  to  send  his  friend  shrubs  and  fruits  from 
the  South,  and  concludes ;]  In  fact,  my  dear  Mr.  Harris,  I  am 
yet  the  same  man  you  knew  at  the  corner  of  5th,  and  Minor 
Streets  [in  Philadelphia],  and  will  continue  forever  the  same. 

After  his  tour  of  the  Lakes  Audubon  returned  to 
Pittsburgh,  and  on  October  24,  1824,  started  down  the 
Ohio  in  a  skiff,  intending  to  descend  to  the  Mississippi 
and  thence  reach  his  family  in  Louisiana.  Bad  weather 
and  lack  of  funds  interfered  with  this  plan,  and  ere  long 
he  was  once  more  stranded  in  Cincinnati,  where  he  was 

19  Ornithological  Biography,  vol.  i,  p.  xi. 

20  The  Jeanes  MSS.;  see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  180. 


DEBUT  AS  A  NATURALIST          345 

beset  by  claimants  for  payment  upon  articles  ordered 
for  the  Western  Museum  five  years  before.  Finding  it 
difficult  at  this  time  to  replenish  an  empty  purse,  Audu- 
bon  felt  that  he  must  borrow  fifteen  dollars,  but  could 
not  make  up  his  mind  how  to  ask  the  favor  until  he  had 
several  times  walked  past  the  house  where  he  had  once 
been  known.  Nevertheless,  he  succeeded  in  obtaining 
the  necessary  funds,  took  passage  on  a  boat  bound  for 
Louisville,  and  slept  cheerfully  that  night  on  a  pile  of 
shavings  which  he  managed  to  scrape  together  on  deck. 
"The  spirit  of  contentment  which  I  now  feel,"  he  wrote, 
"is  strange;  it  borders  on  the  sublime;  and,  enthusiastic 
or  lunatic,  as  some  of  my  relatives  will  have  me,  I  am 
glad  to  possess  such  a  spirit";  later  he  added:  "I  dis- 
cover that  my  friends  think  only  of  my  apparel,  and 
those  upon  whom  I  have  conferred  acts  of  kindness 
prefer  to  remind  me  of  my  errors." 

Louisville  was  reached  on  November  20,  and  a  num- 
ber of  days  were  spent  in  visiting  his  eldest  son, 
Victor,  who  was  then  at  Shippingport.21  He  finally 
arrived  at  Bayou  Sara  in  late  November,  1824.  The 
captain  of  his  vessel,  which  was  bound  for  New  Or- 
leans, put  him  ashore  at  midnight,  and  he  was  left  to 
grope  his  way  to  the  village  on  the  hill.  St.  Francis- 
ville,  to  his  dismay,  was  nearly  deserted,  a  scourge  of 
yellow  fever  having  driven  most  of  its  inhabitants  to 
the  pine  woods.  The  postmaster,  however,  was  able  to 
assure  him  that  his  wife  and  son  were  well,  and  Mr. 
Niibling,  a  friendly  German,  whom  he  described  as  "a 

""Shipping  Port,"  as  the  village  below  the  rapids  or  falls  of  the 
Ohio  was  then  called,  was  joined  to  Louisville  by  the  Louisville  and  Port- 
land Canal,  a  channel  two  and  one-half  miles  long,  in  1830,  two  years 
after  the  city  received  its  charter.  The  "Louisville"  or  "Portland"  cement, 
a  name  now  applied  to  the  product  of  a  considerable  district,  was  first 
manufactured  at  Shipping  Port,  in  1829,  for  the  construction  of  this 
canal. 


346       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

man  of  cultivation  and  taste,  and  a  lover  of  Natural 
Science,"  gave  him  refreshment  and  a  horse.  In  his 
eagerness  to  cover  the  fifteen  miles  to  the  Percy  house 
as  rapidly  as  possible,  he  tried  to  strike  a  straight  course 
through  the  dark  forest,  but  missed  his  way,  and  dawn 
found  him  on  unfamiliar  ground;  he  then  learned  from 
a  negro  that  he  was  two  miles  beyond  the  place.  When 
he  arrived  at  last  "with  rent  and  wasted  clothes,  and 
uncut  hair,  and  altogether  looking  like  the  wandering 
Jew,"  his  wife  was  busily  engaged  in  teaching  her  pupils. 
During  his  absence  of  nearly  fourteen  months  she  had 
prospered  greatly,  and  she  was  not  only  ready  but  eager 
to  place  her  earnings  at  her  husband's  disposal. 

When  he  had  finally  decided  to  take  his  drawings  to 
Europe  for  publication,  Audubon  set  to  work  to  increase 
his  capital,  and  soon  had  pupils  in  French,  music,  and 
drawing,  while  a  dancing  class  of  sixty  was  organized 
in  a  neighboring  town.  His  country  lads  and  lassies 
proved  rather  awkward  material,  and  he  broke  his  bow 
and  nearly  ruined  his  violin  in  his  impatience  to  evoke  a 
single  graceful  step  or  motion;  when,  however,  he  con- 
sented to  dance  to  his  own  music,  he  never  failed  to  bring 
down  thunders  of  applause.  These  efforts  were  con- 
tinued for  over  a  year,  until  he  had  realized  a  consider- 
able sum.  With  this  money  in  hand,  supplemented  by 
what  his  wife  could  spare,  he  determined  to  seek  his  for- 
tunes in  the  Old  World. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS 

Audubon  sails  from  New  Orleans — Life  at  Sea — Liverpool — The  Rath- 
bones — Exhibition  of  drawings  an  immediate  success — Personal  appear- 
ance— Painting  habits  resumed — His  pictures  and  methods — Manchester 
visited — Plans  for  publication — The  Birds  of  America — Welcome  at 
Edinburgh — Lizars  engraves  the  Turkey  Cock — In  the  role  of  society's 
lion — His  exhibition  described  by  a  French  critic — Honors  of  science 
and  the  arts — Contributions  to  journals  excite  criticism — Aristocratic 
patrons — Visit  to  Scott — The  Wild  Pigeon  and  the  rattlesnake — Letter 
to  his  wife — Prospectus — Journey  to  London. 

When  Audubon  had  reached  the  age  of  forty-one, 
his  fortunes  were  destined  to  undergo  still  further  kalei- 
doscopic changes,  but  the  patterns  and  hue  were  now 
of  a  more  agreeable  character.  He  had  failed  repeated- 
ly in  business  ventures  of  various  kinds;  he  had  failed 
also  to  find  either  encouragement  or  support  for  his 
ambitious  schemes  of  publishing  his  drawings  in  the 
United  States.  But  there  was  still  a  chance  for  success 
in  the  Old  World,  and  thither  he  was  determined  to  go 
to  try  the  hazard  of  fortune  in  either  England  or  France. 
Accordingly,  he  left  his  family  at  St.  Francisville  and 
went  to  New  Orleans,  where  he  engaged  passage  on  a 
cotton  schooner  bound  for  Liverpool,  named  the  Delos> 
Captain  Joseph  E.  Hatch.  With  his  drawings,  a  few 
books,  and  a  purse,  if  not  ample,  at  least  sufficient  for 
his  immediate  needs,  and  fortified  with  numerous  let- 
ters, he  finally  set  sail  on  the  17th  of  May,  1826. 

This  voyage,  like  every  other  which  the  naturalist 
ever  made,  was  turned  to  good  account;  the  log  book 

347 


348       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

or  journal  kept  on  this  occasion  abounds  in  interesting 
observations  upon  the  life  of  the  sea,  particularly  on 
the  fishes  and  birds  which  were  encountered  in  the  Gulf. 
The  first  page  of  this  journal,1  reproduced  with  ortho- 
graphic exactness,  reads  as  follows: 

26  April  1826— 

I  Left  My  Beloved  Wife  Lucy  Audubon  and  My  Son  John 
Woodhouse  on  Tuesday  afternoon  the  26th-  April,  bound  to 
England,  remained  at  Doctr  Pope  at  S*  Francisville  untill 
Wednesday  4  o'clock  P.  M. :  in  the  Steam  Boat  Red  River 
Cape  Kimble — having  for  Compagnons  Messrs  D.  Hall  &  John 
Haliday — reached  New  Orleans  Thursday  27th  at  12 — Visit- 
ed Ma«y  Vessels  for  My  Passage  and  concluded  to  go  in  the 
Ship  Delos  of  Kennebunk  Cap6  Joseph  Hatch  bound  to  Liv- 
erpool, Loaded  with  Cotton  entirely — 

The  Red  River  Steam  Boat  left  on  her  return  on  Sun- 
day and  I  Wrote  by  her  to  Thee  My  Dearest  Friend  and  for- 
wardd  Thee  2  Small  Boxes  of  Flowering  Plants — 

saw,  spoke  to  &  walked  with  Charles  Briggs,  much  altered 
young  man — 

Lived  at  New  Orleans  at  G.  L.  Sapinot  in  Company  with 
Coste— 

During  My  Stay  at  New  Orleans,  I  saw  my  old  and  friend- 
ly acquaintances  the  familly  Pamar;  but  the  whole  time  spent 

1Audubon's  1826  manuscript  journal,  which  I  examined  through  the 
courtesy  of  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon  in  1914,  was  written,  mostly  in  pencil, 
in  a  ruled  blank  book,  of  similar  size  and  quality  to  that  used  on  the 
Ohio  River  in  1820-21  (see  Note,  p.  307),  and  was  illustrated  with  a 
number  of  pencil  sketches,  chiefly  of  fishes.  On  page  2  was  a  rough  out- 
line sketch  of  first  mate  Sam  L.  Bragdon,  of  Wells,  Maine,  reading  in 
the  booby  hatch;  to  his  kindness  Audubon  paid  a  written  tribute;  there 
was  also  a  drawing  of  a  "Balacuda  [Barracouta]  Fish,  June  17,  1826;" 
of  a  "Shark,  7  ft.  long;  off  Cuba,  Jn.  18"  (see  reproduction);  and  of  a 
"Dolphin;  Gulph  of  Florida,  May  28;"  other  sketches  were  of  a  line 
or  "thread-winder,"  a  Flying  Fish,  and  outlines  of  the  Cuban  coast. 

Audubon  presented  a  sketch  of  the  "Dolphin"  to  Captain  Hatch,  whose 
vessel,  the  Delos,  went  down  on  the  Grand  Banks  of  Newfoundland  in 
the  summer  of  1831,  but  not  until  her  crew  and  valuables  had  been  trans- 
ferred to  another  boat  that  stood  by.  (For  this  note  I  am  indebted  to 
Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon.) 


IIAUI.V    UNPUBLISHED    DUAWINC;    OF    Tin:    "FRCX;- 

EATER,"  COOPER'S  HAWK;  "RED  BANKS,  KY.. 

XOVI:MHI:U  Jf),  1810.     LONGEUR  TOTAL 

19  rorcES  poms  iu>    (>••'••  urKUE 

12    PEXXKS." 

Published  by  courtesy  of  Mr.  Joseph  Y. 
Jeanes. 


I'liXCII.  SKETCH    I'HO.M    A  I'Df  H(»N   S   .TOTH  N   \  I     cil     1 1  IS   VOYAGE   TO   EXC.I.AX1) 

IN  1826:    "SHARK  7  FEET  I.ONCI,  OFF  CUBA,  JUNE  18TH,  1826." 
Published  by  courtesy  of  Miss  Maria  R.  Audubon. 


FIRST    PAGE    OF    AUDUBON's    JOURNAL    OF    HIS     VOYAGE     FROM     NEW    ORLEANS    TO 

LIVERPOOL. 

Reproduced  by  courtesy  of  the  Misses  Florence  and  Maria  R.  Audubon. 

349 


350       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST; 

in  that  City  was  heavy  &  dull — a  few  Gentlemen  Calld  to  see 
My  Drawings — I  Generally  Walked  from  Morning  untill  Dusk 
My  hands  behind  me,  paying  but  very  partial  attention,  to  all 
I  saw — New  Orleans  to  a  Man  who  does  not  trade  in  Dollars 
or  any  other  Such  Stuffs  is  a  miserable  Spot  = 

fatigued  and  discovering  that  the  Ship  could  not  be  ready 
for  Sea  for  several  days,  I  ascended  the  Mississipy  again  in 
the  Red  River  and  once  more  found  Myself  with  my  Wife 
and  Child.  I  arrived  at  Mrs  Percy  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, having  had  a  Dark  ride  through  the  Magnolia  Woods  but 
the  Moments  spent  afterwards  full  repaid  me — I  remained  2 
days  and  3  Nights,  was  a  Wedding — of  Miss  Virginia  Chisholm 
with  Mr-  D.  Hall  &c-  I  Left  in  Company  With  Lucy  Mrs 
Percy "  house  at  Sun  rise  and  went  to  Breakfast  at  My  good 
[friend's,  Augustin  Bourgeat]. 

The  captain  and  mates  of  the  Delos  were  friendly, 
and  whenever  their  vessel  was  becalmed,  they  would 
let  down  a  boat  so  that  Audubon  could  procure  the 
stormy  Petrel  and  numerous  other  birds  which  he  was 
anxious  to  examine  in  the  flesh  or  depict  for  his  "Orni- 
thology." 

During  his  long  voyage  of  sixty-five  days  our  adven- 
turous traveler  was  alternately  elated  or  depressed  by 
hopes  or  fears  for  the  future,  until  land  was  at  last 
reached  on  Friday,  July  21,  1826.  The  appearance  of 
Liverpool,  said  Audubon,  "was  agreeable,  but  no  sooner 
had  I  entered  it  than  the  smoke  became  so  oppressive  to 
my  lungs  that  I  could  hardly  breathe."  At  the  customs 
he  was  charged  two  pence  on  each  of  his  drawings,  "as 
they  were  water-colored,"  but  on  his  American  books 
he  had  to  pay  "four  pence  per  pound,"  a  circumstance 
in  which  he  was  possibly  favored  by  the  following  letter 
which  he  had  brought  with  him  from  a  friend  in  New 
Orleans: 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  351 

Edward  Holden  to  George  Ramsden. 

NEW  ORLEANS,  May  26th.,  1826. 
GEORGE  RAMSDEN,  ESQ. 
DEAR  SIR. 

The  present  will  be  handed  to  you  by  Mr.  J.  J.  Audubon 
of  this  city,  whom  most  respectfully  I  beg  to  introduce  to 
you. 

The  principal  object  of  Mr.  Audubon's  visit  to  England  is 
to  make  arrangements  for  the  publication  of  an  extensive  and 
very  valuable  collection  of  his  drawings  in  Natural  History, 
chiefly  if  not  wholly  of  American  Birds,  and  he  takes  them 
with  him  for  that  purpose.  Can  you  be  of  any  assistance  to 
him  by  letters  to  Manchester  and  London?  If  you  can  I  have 
no  doubt  that  my  introduction  of  him  will  insure  your  best  at- 
tention and  services. — Mr.  Audubon  is  afraid  of  having  to  pay 
heavy  duties  upon  his  drawings.  He  will  describe  them  to  you, 
and  if  in  getting  them  entered  Low  at  the  Custom  House,  or 
if  in  any  other  respect  you  can  further  his  views,  I  shall  consider 
your  aid  as  an  obligation  conferred  upon  myself.  Pray  intro- 
duce him  particularly  to  Mr.  Booth,  who  I  am  sure  will  feel 
great  interest  in  being  acquainted  with  him,  were  it  only  on  ac- 
count of  the  desire  he  has  always  expressed  to  be  of  service  to 
the  new  Manchester  Institution,  to  which  Mr.  Audubon's  draw- 
ings would  be  an  invaluable  acquisition. 

I  am  Dr.  Sir  Yours  truly, 

EDWARD  HOLDEN. 

Among  the  letters  which  Audubon  carried  on  this 
occasion,  but  which  apparently  he  did  not  deliver,  was 
the  following,  addressed  by  a  friend  in  New  Orleans  to 
General  Lafayette : 2 

•Addressed  "GENERAL  LAFAYETTE, 

Paris  ou  Lagrange." 

Translated  from  the  French  original,  kindly  sent  to  me  by  Mr. 
Ruthven  Deane. 


352       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Louis  P.  Caire  to  General  Lafayette 

NEW  ORLEANS,  15  May,  1826. 
MY  DEAR  GENERAL, 

Monsieur  Audubon,  after  having  spent  twenty-two  years  in 
the  United  States,  is  returning  to  Europe  in  order  to  publish  a 
work  to  which  he  has  devoted  his  entire  life.  This  distinguished 
ornithologist,  who  bears  letters  from  the  most  eminent  citizens 
of  the  Union,  will  find,  I  trust,  the  encouragement  to  which 
his  talents  and  his  perseverance  so  fully  entitle  him,  and  how- 
ever flattering  may  be  the  recommendations  which  his  friends 
are  eager  to  give  him,  these  are  yet,  my  dear  General,  beneath 
his  merits.  I  have  presumed  to  assure  him  of  your  patron- 
age, and  in  introducing  him  to  you  I  am  convinced  that  it  will 
be  agreeable  to  you  both. 

Adieu  my  General:  give  my  kind  regards  to  all  your  fam- 
ily, and  permit  me  to  embrace  you  as  I  love  you. 

Louis  P.  CAIRE. 

Before  Audubon  left  New  Orleans,  an  old  acquain- 
tance, Mr.  Vincent  Nolte  3  of  that  city,  had  also  fur- 
nished him  with  credentials,  in  which  it  was  stated  that 
the  naturalist  was  carrying  with  him  four  hundred  orig- 
inal drawings,  and  that  his  object  was  "to  find  a  pur- 
chaser or  a  publisher."  "He  has  a  crowd  of  letters," 
continued  Nolte,  "from  Mr.  Clay,  De  Witt  Clinton,  and 
others  for  England,  which  will  do  much  for  him;  but 
your  introduction  to  Mr.  Roscoe  and  others  will  do 
more."  This  judgment  was  sound,  but  the  most  valu- 
able letter  which  Audubon  carried  proved  to  be  that  of 
Nolte  himself  addressed  to  Richard  Rathbone,  Esq.,  of 
Liverpool,  for  it  brought  him  into  immediate  friendly 
relations  with  an  influential  family  of  merchants  which 
also  included  William  Rathbone,  a  brother,  as  well  as 
their  father,  William  Rathbone,  Senior,  whose  interest 

8  For  an  account  of  Audubon's  meeting  with  Nolte  see  Chapter  XVIII. 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  353 

in  birds  had  made  him  in  his  younger  days  an  amateur 
collector  and  student.  Seldom  has  the  role  of  Maecenas 
been  played  more  effectively  and  with  less  ostentation 
than  by  those  intelligent  men  of  affairs,  to  whom  Audu- 
bon,  with  his  fine  enthusiasm  and  bold  literary  plans, 
seemed  to  embody  all  the  romance  of  the  New  World. 
They  stood  sponsor  for  his  work  and  worth,  and  did 
all  in  their  power  to  make  their  new  discovery  known. 
At  the  home  of  the  senior  Rathbone,  called  "Green- 
bank,"  three  miles  out  of  Liverpool,  the  naturalist  was 
warmly  welcomed,  and  his  excellent  hostess,  Mrs.  Wil- 
liam Rathbone,  the  "Queen  bee,"  as  he  called  her,  re- 
ceived from  him  lessons  in  drawing  and  became  his  first 
subscriber. 

At  this  period  Audubon  often  complained  of  shy- 
ness felt  in  meeting  strangers,  but  his  "observatory 
nerves,"  as  he  said,  never  gave  way.  He  studied  his 
English  friends  as  closely  as  he  had  the  birds  of  Amer- 
ica, and  the  results  of  his  shrewd  observations  were 
often  turned  to  practical  account.  That  he  was  as  diffi- 
dent as  he  declared  himself  to  be  may  be  doubted,  for 
he  seems  to  have  met  nearly  everyone  of  prominence 
wherever  he  went,  and  a  list  of  his  acquaintance  at  the 
end  of  his  sojourn  abroad  would  read  much  like  a  "Blue 
Book"  of  the  British  Isles. 

At  Liverpool  Audubon  received  much  assistance 
also  from  Edward  Roscoe,  botanist  and  writer,  Dr. 
Thomas  S.  Traill 4  and  Adam  Hodgson,  who  introduced 

4  Dr.  Thomas  Stuart  Traill,  after  whom  one  of  our  common  flycatchers 
was  named,  was  a  founder  of  the  Royal  Institution  at  Liverpool,  and  later 
a  professor  of  medical  jurisprudence  at  Edinburgh.  When  the  keepership 
of  the  Department  of  Natural  History  in  the  British  Museum  became 
vacant  through  the  resignation  of  Dr.  Leech  in  1822,  Dr.  Traill  supported 
William  Swainson  for  the  position;  when  George  J.  Children  received  the 
appointment,  he  was  disinclined  to  accept  defeat,  and  entered  upon  a 
crusade  against  the  Museum's  trustees  in  a  series  of  anonymous  articles 


354       AUDUBOIST,  THE  NATURALIST 

him  to  Lord  Stanley.  When  he  came  to  write  his  Orni- 
thological Biography,  these  early  friends  were  all  pub- 
licly called  by  name,  and  we  thus  had  (though,  as  it 
afterwards  appeared,  in  name  only)  the  "Rathbone 
Warbler,"5  "Stanley  Hawk,"  "Children's  Warbler," 
"Cuvier's  Regulus,"  "Roscoe's  Yellow-throat,"  "Selby's 
Flycatcher,"  and  still  possess  "Bewick's  Wren," 
"Traill's  Flycatcher,"  "Henslow's  Bunting,"6  "Mac- 
Gillivray's  Finch,"  and  "Harlan's  Hawk,"  to  cite  a  few 
instances  of  this  form  of  acknowledgment. 

Within  barely  a  week  after  landing  at  Liverpool  a 
total  stranger,  Audubon  was  invited  to  show  his  draw- 
ings at  the  Royal  Institution.  The  exhibition,  which 
lasted  a  month,  was  a  surprising  success;  413  persons, 
as  he  recorded,  were  admitted  on  the  second  day,  and  it 
netted  him  one  hundred  pounds  although  no  charge  for 
admission  was  made  during  the  first  week. 

Everyone,  said  the  naturalist,  was  surprised  at  his 
appearance,  for  he  wore  his  hair  long,  dressed  in  un- 
fashionable clothes,  rose  early,  worked  late,  and  was 
abstemious  in  food  and  drink.  Shortly  after  his  arrival, 

contributed  to  the  Edinburgh  and  Westminster  Reviews.  TrailPs  exposure 
of  the  neglect  which  the  natural-history  collections  had  suffered  in  the 
custody  of  the  British  Museum  paved  the  way  to  a  separate  Department 
of  Zoology,  which  in  the  able  hands  of  John  E.  Gray,  and  later  in  those 
of  Sir  Richard  Owen,  led  to  the  present  great  Museum  of  Natural  History 
at  South  Kensington. 

5 In  dedicating  the  Sylvia  rathbonia  Audubon  said:  "Were  I  at  liberty 
here  to  express  the  gratitude  which  swells  my  heart,  when  the  remembrance 
of  all  the  unmerited  kindness  and  unlooked-for  friendship  which  I  have 
received  from  the  Rathbones  of  Liverpool  comes  to  my  mind,  I  might  pro- 
duce a  volume  of  thanks.  But  I  must  content  myself  with  informing  you, 
that  the  small  tribute  of  gratitude  which  it  is  alone  in  my  power  to  pay, 
I  now  joyfully  accord,  by  naming  after  them  one  of  those  birds,  to  the 
study  of  which  all  my  efforts  have  been  directed.  I  trust  that  future 
naturalists,  regardful  of  the  feelings  which  have  guided  me  in  naming 
this  species,  will  continue  to  it  the  name  of  the  Rathbone  Warbler" 

"Named  after  John  Stevens  Henslow,  Professor  of  Botany  in  the 
University  of  Cambridge,  whom  Audubon  had  met  in  1828,  when  Charles 
Darwin  was  still  his  pupil. 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  355 

his  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Alexander  Gordon,  urged  him 
to  have  his  hair  cut  and  to  buy  a  fashionable  coat,  but 
he  could  not  then  bear  to  sacrifice  his  ambrosial  locks, 
which  continued  to  wave  over  his  shoulders  until  the 
following  March.  If  we  can  accept  Sir  Walter  Besant's 
characterization  of  the  period,  the  "long-haired  Achaean" 
was  no  stranger  to  the  streets  of  London  as  late  as  1837 : 
"brave  is  the  exhibition  of  flowing  locks ;  they  flow  over 
the  ears  and  over  the  coat-collars;  you  can  smell  the 
bear's  grease  across  the  street ;  and  if  these  amaranthine 
locks  were  to  be  raised  you  would  see  the  shiny  coating 
of  bear's  grease  upon  the  velvet  collar  below." 

Audubon  had  not  been  in  England  three  weeks 
before  he  resumed  his  drawing  and  painting  habits,  at 
first  in  order  to  repay  his  friends  for  their  kindness, 
and  later  as  a  means  of  support;  at  times  he  would 
devote  every  spare  moment  to  this  work,  and  he  was 
then  able  to  paint  fourteen  hours  at  a  stretch  without 
fatigue.  On  October  2  he  recorded  that  he  had  made  in 
less  than  twenty  minutes  a  diminutive  sketch  of  the 
Turkey  Cock  from  his  large  twenty-three  hour  picture. 
This  was  for  Mrs.  William  Rathbone,  Senior,  who  later 
presented  it  to  him  in  the  form  of  a  handsome  gold- 
mounted  seal,  inscribed  with  his  favorite  motto,  "Amer- 
ica, my  country."  7  The  facility  which  Audubon  dis- 
played in  producing  his  pictures  of  animal  life — Amer- 
ican wild  turkeys,  trapped  otters,  fighting  cats,  English 
game  pieces,  and  the  like,  in  a  style  both  novel  and  indi- 
vidual, added  much  to  his  immediate  popularity  in  Eng- 


7  This  seal,  the  design  of  which  has  since  been  adapted  for  a  book- 
plate, was  long  in  use,  and  though  at  one  time  lost,  is  still  in  possession 
of  the  family.  A  copy  of  the  large  original,  which  was  to  serve  as  his 
first  plate,  was  presented  to  the  Royal  Institution  of  Liverpool  as  an 
acknowledgment  of  its  hospitality,  for  it  had  refused  remuneration  in  any 
other  form. 


356       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

land,  as  it  later  did  to  his  purse.  His  painting  devices 
are  thus  referred  to  in  a  journal  entry  for  January, 
1827: 

No  one,  I  think,  paints  in  my  method;  I,  who  have  never 
studied  but  by  piece-meal,  form  my  pictures  according  to  my 
ways  of  study.  For  instance,  I  am  now  working  on  a  Fox;  I 
take  one  neatly  killed,  put  him  up  with  wires  and  when  satisfied 
with  the  truth  of  the  position,  I  take  my  palette  and  work  as 
rapidly  as  possible;  the  same  with  my  birds;  if  practicable  I 
finish  the  bird  at  one  sitting, — often,  it  is  true,  of  fourteen 
hours, — so  that  I  think  they  are  correct,  both  in  detail  and 
composition. 

When  he  was  painting  pheasants  and  needed  a  white 
one  as  "a  keystone  of  light"  to  his  picture,  a  nobleman 
sent  word  that  he  would  be  given  "leave  to  see  the  pic- 
tures" in  his  hall,  but  this  Audubon  characteristically 
refused,  being  determined  to  pay  no  such  visits  without 
invitation. 

On  the  10th  of  September,  1826,  Audubon  left  Liv- 
erpool, in  a  hopeful  mood,  for  Manchester,  with  the  in- 
tention of  visiting  the  chief  cities  of  England  and  Scot- 
land. He  was  fortified  with  a  bundle  of  letters  to  a 
long  list  of  distinguished  people,  including  Baron  von 
Humboldt,  General  Lafayette,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Sir 
Humphry  Davy  and  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence.  His  first 
step  proved  a  disappointment,  and  when  he  finally  left 
the  City  of  Spindles  six  weeks  later,  he  found  himself 
poorer  than  when  he  had  entered  it.  At  Manchester, 
however,  he  added  to  his  list  of  interested  friends  and 
possible  patrons,  and  acting  upon  their  suggestion, 
opened  a  subscription  book  for  the  publication  of  his 
long  meditated  work,  to  be  called  The  Birds  of  America. 
The  Rathbones,  as  well  as  other  friends  whose  advice 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS          357 

he  esteemed,  tried  to  dissuade  him  from  the  plan  of 
publishing  his  drawings  in  their  full  size,  which  was 
that  of  life,  on  account  of  the  great  expense  involved 
and  the  enormous  bulk  such  a  work  would  assume ;  but 
he  could  not  bring  himself  to  give  up  the  idea,  in  which 
he  received  the  support  of  the  London  bookseller,  Mr. 
Bohn,  who,  after  seeing  Audubon's  drawings  reversed 
his  opinion,  saying  that  they  must  be  brought  out  in 
their  full  size,  and  that  they  would  certainly  pay. 

After  coming  to  England  Audubon  often  thought 
of  the  shifting  scenes  and  strange  contrasts  his  life  had 
brought.  One  day  he  felt  the  pinch  of  poverty,  but 
on  the  next  fared  sumptuously  at  the  tables  of  the  rich ; 
now  a  rambler  in  the  wilds  of  America,  glad  to  accept 
the  hospitality  of  the  humblest  prairie  squatter,  now  the 
guest  of  some  metropolitan  aristocrat.  "The  squatter," 
he  said,  when  writing  in  England,  "is  rough,  true,  and 
hospitable;  my  friends  here  polished,  true,  and  gener- 
ous. Both  give  freely,  and  he  who  during  the  tough 
storms  of  life  can  be  in  such  spots  may  well  say  that 
he  has  tasted  happiness." 

While  at  Manchester  Audubon  was  driven  to  the 
town  of  Bakewell,  "the  spot,"  he  wrote  in  deference  to 
his  wife,  "which  has  been  honored  with  thy  ancestor's 
name."  Shortly  after,  on  October  23,  he  started  by 
stage  for  Edinburgh,  and  the  distance  of  212  miles  was 
covered  in  three  days;  the  fare  was  £5  5s.  5d.,  which  he 
regarded  as  exorbitant,  but  he  complained  not  so  much 
of  the  charge  as  of  the  beggarly  manner  of  the  drivers, 
who  never  hesitated  to  open  the  door  of  their  coach 
and  ask  for  a  shilling  at  the  slightest  provocation. 

At  Edinburgh  Audubon  was  welcomed  so  warmly 
that  he  began  to  feel  that  ultimate  success  was  at  last 
within  his  reach.  Professor  Robert  Jameson  of  the 


358       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

University  did  much  to  make  his  work  known,  and  in- 
vited him  to  cooperate  in  an  enterprise  upon  which  he 
was  then  engaged ; 8  this  was  pronounced  by  Dr.  Knox 
of  the  Medical  School  to  be  a  "job  book,"  but  whatever 
its  merits  may  have  been,  Audubon  decided  after  due 
reflection  to  stand  on  his  own  feet. 

Not  long  after  reaching  the  Scottish  capital,  Audu- 
bon made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  W.  Home  Lizars, 
styled  "a  Mr.  Lizard"  by  a  snapshot  biographer  of  a 
later  day,  a  well  known,  expert  engraver  and  painter, 
who  engaged  in  various  publishing  enterprises.  When 
Audubon  had  held  up  a  few  of  his  drawings  for  his 
inspection,  Lizars  rose,  exclaiming:  "My  God!  I  never 
saw  anything  like  this  before."  The  picture  of  the 
Mockingbirds  attacked  by  a  rattlesnake  particularly 
struck  his  fancy,  but  when  he  came  to  the  drawing  of 
the  Great-footed  Hawks,  "with  bloody  rags  at  their 
beaks'  ends,  and  cruel  delight  in  their  daring  eyes," 
Lizars  declared  that  he  would  both  engrave  and  publish 
it.  "Mr.  Audubon,"  said  he,  "the  people  here  don't 
know  who  you  are  at  all,  but  depend  upon  it,  they  shall 
know."  Lizars  eventually  agreed  to  engrave  and  bring 
out  the  first  specimen  number  of  The  Birds  of  America,, 
and  about  the  10th  of  November  made  a  beginning  with 
the  first  plate.  On  November  28,  1826,  he  handed  Au- 
dubon a  first  proof  of  the  Wild  Turkey  Cock,  a  subject 
chosen  to  justify  the  great  size  of  the  work,  which  was 
to  be  in  double  elephant  folio,  and  which  in  point  of 
size  is  perhaps  to  this  day  the  largest  extended  publica^ 
tion  in  existence. 9  This  and  the  second  plate,  which 
represented  the  Yellow-billed  Cuckoo  10  in  the  act  of 

8  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  375. 

9 The  plates  as  issued,  untrimmed,  measured  39%  by  29%  inches;  see 
Bibliography,  No.  1. 

10  See  Note,  Vol.  II,  p.  197.    Incidentally  it  may  be  noticed  that  the  "tiger 


PLATE      I 


Engraved  by  W.H.Lizars  Idnrt 
Malt,.  uced  b    R.HaveUJunr 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  359 

seizing  a  tiger  swallowtail  butterfly  on  a  branch  of  the 
paw-paw  tree,  were  finished  by  December  10;  the  first 
number  of  five  plates  was  ready  some  weeks  later.  Li- 
zars  engraved  at  Edinburgh  the  first  ten  of  Audubon's 
plates,  but  most  of  these  were  subsequently  retouched, 
colored  and  reissued  by  his  successor  in  London,  as  will 
presently  appear. 

When  Audubon's  pictures  were  exhibited  at  the 
Royal  Institution  of  Edinburgh,  their  success  was  imme- 
diate, and  like  the  appearance  of  a  new  Waverley  novel, 
they  became  the  talk  of  the  town ;  the  American  woods- 
man had  provided  a  new  thrill  for  the  leaders  of  fash- 
ion, as  well  as  for  the  literati  and  the  scientific  men. 
The  "noblest  Roman  of  them  all,"  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
refused  to  attend,  but  after  having  met  the  naturalist 
he  wrote  this  in  his  journal:  "I  wish  I  had  gone  to  see 
his  drawings ;  but  I  had  heard  so  much  about  them  that 
I  resolved  not  to  see  them — 'a  crazy  way  of  mine,  your 
honor.'  " 

Philarete-Chasles,  a  well  known  French  critic  of  the 
period,  has  left  the  following  record n  of  the  effect 
which  this  exhibition  made  on  his  impressionable  mind: 

We  have  admired  in  the  rooms  of  the  Royal  Society  of 
Edinburgh  the  public  exhibition  of  [Audubon's]  original  water- 
color  drawings.  A  magic  power  transported  us  into  the  for- 
ests which  for  so  many  years  this  man  of  genius  has  trod. 

swallowtail"  in  this  plate  was  possibly  added  for  effect,  for  few  of  our 
birds,  which  habitually  hunt  moths,  ever  prey  upon  butterflies.  I  have 
seen  the  cabbage  butterfly  and  a  few  of  the  smaller  kinds  brought  to 
the  nests  of  the  Chebec  and  Wood  Pewee  but  never  a  "monarch"  or 
"papilio";  yet  some  affirm  that  the  Kingbird  will  attack  the  "monarch." 

"Translated  from  Etudes  sur  la  Literature  et  leg  Mceurs  dea  Anglo- 
Americains  an  XIXe  tiecle,  "Audubon,"  pp.  66-106  (Paris,  1851). 
Philarete-Chasles,  who  wrote  chiefly  on  American,  English  and  European 
authors  and  books,  has  seventy  volumes  credited  to  him  in  the  National 
Library  at  Paris. 


360       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Learned  and  ignorant  alike  were  astonished  at  the  spectacle, 
which  we  will  not  attempt  to  reproduce. 

Imagine  a  landscape  wholly  American,  trees,  flowers,  grass, 
even  the  tints  of  the  sky  and  the  waters,  quickened  with  a  life 
that  is  real,  peculiar,  trans-Atlantic.  On  twigs,  branches,  bits 
of  shore,  copied  by  the  brush  with  the  strictest  fidelity,  sport 
the  feathered  races  of  the  New  World,  in  the  size  of  life,  each 
in  its  particular  attitude,  its  individuality  and  peculiarities. 
Their  plumages  sparkle  with  nature's  own  tints ;  you  see  them 
in  motion  or  at  rest,  in  their  plays  and  their  combats,  in  their 
anger  fits  and  their  caresses,  singing,  running,  asleep,  just 
awakened,  beating  the  air,  skimming  the  waves,  or  rending  one 
another  in  their  battles.  It  is  a  real  and  palpable  vision  of  the 
New  World,  with  its  atmosphere,  its  imposing  vegetation,  and 
its  tribes  which  know  not  the  yoke  of  man.  The  sun  shines 
athwart  the  clearing  in  the  woods;  the  swan  floats  suspended 
between  a  cloudless  sky  and  a  glittering  wave;  strange  and 
majestic  figures  keep  pace  with  the  sun,  which  gleams  from  the 
mica  sown  broadcast  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic;  and  this 
realization  of  an  entire  hemisphere,  this  picture  of  a  nature  so 
lusty  and  strong,  is  due  to  the  brush  of  a  single  man ;  such  an 
unheard  of  triumph  of  patience  and  genius ! — the  resultant 
rather  of  a  thousand  triumphs  won  in  the  face  of  innumerable 
obstacles !" 

Another  French  writer 12  remarked  that  Audubon 
produced  the  same  sensation  among  the  savants  of  Eng- 
land that  Franklin  had  made  at  the  close  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  among  the  politicians  of  the  Old  World; 
his  works,  he  added,  should  be  translated  into  his  native 
tongue,  and  produced  in  a  form  which  would  enable 
them  to  reach  the  library  of  every  naturalist  in  France. 
One  after  another  the  scientific,  literary,  and  arts  so- 

13  P.  A.  Cap,  in  L' Illustration  for  1851.  Cap's  hint  was  taken  by 
Eugene  Bazin,  who  translated  copious  selections  from  the  Ornithological 
Biography,  which  were  published  in  two  volumes  in  Paris  in  1857  (see 
Bibliography,  No.  38). 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  361 

cieties  of  the  modern  Athens  elected  Audubon  to  honor- 
ary membership ;  Combe,  the  phrenologist  and  author  of 
The  Constitution  of  Man,  examined  the  naturalist's  head 
and  modeled  it  in  plaster,  for  of  course  it  proved  to  be  a 
perfect  exemplification  of  his  system ;  Syme,  the  artist, 
did  his  portrait  for  Lizars  to  engrave.  Meanwhile  the 
press  was  giving  such  flattering  accounts  of  the  man 
and  his  work  that  Audubon  confessed  that  he  was  quite 
ashamed  to  walk  the  street.  At  the  annual  banquet  of 
the  Royal  Institution,  held  at  the  Waterloo  Hotel  and 
presided  over  by  Lord  Elgin,  Audubon  was  toasted, 
and  it  required  all  his  resolution  to  rise  and,  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life,  address  a  large  assembly ;  this,  how- 
ever, he  managed  to  do  in  the  following  words:  "Gen- 
tlemen ;  my  command  of  words  in  which  to  reply  to  your 
kindness  is  almost  as  limited  as  that  of  the  birds  hanging 
on  the  walls  of  your  Institution.  I  am  truly  obliged  for 
your  favors.  Permit  me  to  say;  may  God  bless  you 
all,  and  may  this  society  prosper."  On  the  10th  of  De- 
cember he  wrote:  "My  situation  in  Edinburgh  borders 
on  the  miraculous,"  and  he  felt  that  his  reception  in  that 
city  was  a  good  augury  for  the  future.  But  the  life 
that  he  was  compelled  to  lead  was  extremely  fatiguing, 
and  he  often  longed  to  return  to  his  family  and  to  his 
favorite  magnolia  woods  in  Louisiana.  "I  go  to  dine," 
he  wrote,  "at  six,  seven,  or  even  eight  o'clock  in  the  eve- 
ning, and  it  is  often  one  or  two  when  the  party  breaks 
up;  then  painting  all  day,  with  my  correspondence, 
which  increases  daily,  makes  my  head  feel  like  an  im- 
mense hornet's  nest,  and  my  body  wearied  beyond  all 
calculation;  yet  it  has  to  be  done;  those  who  have  my 
best  interests  at  heart  tell  me  I  must  not  refuse  a  single 
invitation."  But  notwithstanding  the  tax  which  society 
always  levies  upon  the  lion's  strength,  he  wrote  almost 


362       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

daily  in  his  journal  or  diary,13  and  its  pages,  from  which 
we  have  been  quoting,  became  a  mirror  of  all  that  he 
saw,  heard,  or  did.  Audubon  was  generous  with  his 
time,  as  with  everything  else,  and  would  never  hesitate 
to  lay  aside  his  own  work  for  the  sake  of  a  friend  who 
was  eager  to  acquire  his  method  of  drawing.  But  when 
his  entertainment  commenced  with  an  invitation  to 
breakfast,  he  began  to  be  alarmed  at  the  large  share  of 
his  working  hours  which  had  to  be  surrendered  to  his 
friends.  "I  seem,  in  a  measure,"  he  said,  "to  have  gone 
back  to  my  early  days  of  society  and  fine  dressing,  silk 
stockings  and  pumps,  and  all  the  finery  with  which  I 
made  a  popinjay  of  myself  in  my  youth  ...  It  is  Mr. 
Audubon  here,  and  Mr.  Audubon  there,  and  I  can  only 
hope  they  will  not  make  a  conceited  fool  of  Mr.  Audu- 
bon at  last." 

In  response  to  urgent  appeals  he  began  at  this  time 
to  contribute  to  the  scientific  journals  of  the  Scottish 
capital,  a  step  which  only  served  to  remind  him  that 
the  rose  was  more  prolific  in  thorns  than  flowers.  Dr. 
Brewster,  however,  in  his  Journal  of  Science,  and  John 
Wilson  in  Blackwoods,  sang  paeans  in  his  praise,  and 
there  is  no  doubt  that  "Christopher  North,"  so  like  and 
yet  so  unlike  the  American  woodsman,  did  much  to 
smooth  his  path  in  his  own  country  as  well  as  in  Europe. 
Though  keenly  feeling  the  need  of  literary  advice  in 
those  early  contributions,  Audubon  was  quite  shocked 
at  the  alterations  which  Dr.  Brewster  had  made  in  one 
of  these  articles,  for  though  the  editor  had  "greatly  im- 
proved the  style,"  he  had  quite  "destroyed  the  matter." 
On  December  21,  1826,  Audubon  wrote  to  Thomas 
Sully  that  he  would  send  him  a  copy  of  the  first  number 
of  his  Birds,  with  the  request  that  he  forward  it  in  his 

18  See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals   (Bibl.  No.  86). 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  363 

name  "to  that  Institution  which  thought  me  unworthy 
to  be  a  member  .  .  .  There  is  no  malice  in  my  heart," 
he  continued,  "and  I  wish  no  return  or  acknowledgment 
from  them.  I  am  now  determined  never  to  be  a  mem- 
ber of  that  Philadelphia  Society."  Let  it  be  noted, 
however,  that  Audubon  was  elected  to  membership  in 
the  American  Philosophical  Society,  when  their  recog- 
nition could  no  longer  be  withheld  and  when  mutual 
animosities  had  died  down.  Three  days  later  he  re- 
corded that  all  of  his  drawings  had  been  taken  from 
the  walls  of  the  Royal  Institution,  where  they  had  been 
on  exhibition  a  month,  and  that  he  was  intending  to 
present  to  the  Society  his  large  canvas  of  the  Wild  Tur- 
keys, for  which  Galley,  the  picture  dealer,  had  offered 
him  a  hundred  guineas  on  the  previous  day.14 

Among  Audubon's  early  patrons  were  Lord  and 
Lady  Morton,  and  more  than  once  he  was  invited  to 
visit  them  in  their  beautiful  country  seat  of  "Dalma- 
hoy,"  where  a  large,  square,  half -Gothic  building, 
crowned  with  turrets  and  adorned  with  all  the  signs 
of  heraldry,  overlooked  a  beautiful  landscape  to  Edin- 
burgh, marked  by  its  famous  castle,  seen  in  miniature 
on  the  horizon,  eight  miles  away.  Being  somewhat  ap- 
prehensive of  meeting  the  former  Chamberlain  to  the 
late  Queen  Charlotte,  Audubon  had  imagined  the  Earl 

"Audubon's  copy  of  this  oil  painting  remained  in  the  possession  of 
his  family  until  a  few  years  ago,  when  it  was  sold  for  a  much  greater 
amount.  It  now  adorns  the  beautiful  ornithological  museum  of  Mr.  John 
E.  Thayer,  at  South  Lancaster,  Massachusetts;  it  represents  a  cock  and  hen 
turkey  in  life  size,  adapted  from  the  subjects  of  his  two  most  famous 
plates,  and  is  in  an  admirable  state  of  preservation.  Mr.  Thayer's  collec- 
tion also  embraces  Audubon's  large  canvas  of  the  Black  Cocks,  from  the 
Edward  Harris  estate,  a  charming  study  of  the  Hen  Turkey,  with  land- 
scape setting,  and,  also  in  oils,  several  smaller  panels  of  Flickers  and 
Passenger  Pigeons,  which,  if  not  the  work  of  the  naturalist,  are  copies  after 
his  originals,  and  possibly  made  by  Joseph  B.  Kidd.  (See  Vol.  I,  p.  446;  and 
for  a  notice  of  Mr.  Thayer's  other  Audubonian  drawings,  Vol.  II,  p.  227,  and 
Appendix  II.) 


364       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

to  be  "a  man  of  great  physical  strength  and  size";  in- 
stead, however,  he  saw 

a  small,  slender  man,  tottering  on  his  feet,  weaker  than  a 
newly  hatched  partridge;  he  welcomed  me  with  tears  in  his 
eyes,  held  one  of  my  hands,  and  attempted  speaking,  which  was 
difficult  to  him,  the  Countess  meanwhile  rubbing  his  other  hand. 
I  saw  at  a  glance  the  situation,  and  begged  he  would  be  seated 
.  .  .  and  I  took  a  seat  on  a  sofa  that  I  thought  would  swallow 
me  up,  so  much  down  swelled  around  me.  It  was  a  vast  room, 
at  least  sixty  feet  long,  and  wide  in  proportion,  let  me  say 
thirty  feet,  all  hung  with  immense  paintings  on  a  rich  purple 
ground;  all  was  purple  about  me.  The  large  tables  were  cov- 
ered with  books,  instruments,  drawing  apparatus,  a  telescope, 
with  hundreds  of  ornaments. 

After  luncheon  Audubon's  "Book  of  Nature"  was  pro- 
duced, and  his  drawings  spread  out  and  admired.  Next 
day  the  Countess,  who  was  "a  woman  of  superior  intel- 
lect and  conversation,"  was  given  "a  most  unnecessary 
lesson"  in  drawing,  for,  said  the  naturalist,  "she  drew 
much  better  than  I  did;  but  I  taught  her  to  rub  with 
cork,  and  prepare  for  water-color."  Before  he  left  the 
Countess  wrote  her  name  in  his  subscription  book,  and 
arranged  that  he  should  return  and  resume  his  instruc- 
tion. 

One  of  Audubon's  early  friends  at  Edinburgh  was 
Captain  Basil  Hall,15  traveler  and  writer,  who  was  then 
about  to  start  on  a  journey  through  the  United  States; 
he  told  the  naturalist  that  he  was  a  midshipman  on  board 
the  Leander  "when  Pierce  was  killed  off  New  York," 
at  the  time  of  Audubon's  return  with  Rozier  to  America 
in  1806,  when  Captain  Sammis,  upon  seeing  the  British 

15  Basil  Hall  (1788-1844),  noted  for  his  travels  in  China,  Korea,  and 
on  the  coasts  of  Chili,  Peru  and  Mexico,  visited  the  United  States  in  1827- 
28;  his  Travels  in  North  America  appeared  in  1829. 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  365 

frigate,  "wore  around  Long  Island  Sound,  and  reached 
New  York  by  Hell  Gate."  It  was  at  Captain  Hall's 
home  that  Audubon  met  Francis  Jeffrey.  The  indom- 
itable critic  and  reviewer  was  described  as  "a  small  (not 
to  say  tiny)  man,"  who  entered  the  room  "with  a  woman 
under  one  arm,  and  a  hat  under  the  other."  "His  looks 
were  shrewd,"  said  the  naturalist,  his  eyes  "almost  cun- 
ning" and  though  he  talked  much,  he  appeared  unsym- 
pathetic. Their  meeting  was  productive  of  no  friendry 
feelings  on  either  side. 

Three  months  after  reaching  Edinburgh,  the  long 
awaited  opportunity  of  meeting  the  greatest  literary 
figure  of  the  day  came  to  Audubon  unexpectedly,  for 
he  did  not  wish  to  be  introduced  in  a  crowd.  Under 
date  of  January  22,  1827,  he  wrote  that  Captain  Hall 
came  to  his  rooms  and  said:  "Put  on  your  coat,  and 
come  with  me  to  Sir  Walter  Scott:  he  wishes  to  see  you 
now."  "In  a  moment,"  said  Audubon,  "I  was  ready. 
.  .  .  My  heart  trembled ;  I  longed  for  the  meeting,  yet 
wished  it  over."  When  they  were  ushered  into  Sir 
Walter's  study,  the  great  Scot  came  forward,  and 
warmly  pressing  the  hand  of  his  visitor,  said  he  was 
glad  to  have  the  honor  of  meeting  him.  Audubon's 
record  of  the  meeting  continues : 

His  long,  loose,  silvery  locks  struck  me;  he  looked  like 
Franklin  at  his  best.  He  also  reminded  me  of  Benjamin  West; 
he  had  the  great  benevolence  of  William  Roscoe  about  him,  and 
a  kindness  most  prepossessing.  I  could  not  forbear  looking  at 
him ;  my  eyes  feasted  on  his  countenance.  I  watched  his  move- 
ments as  I  would  those  of  a  celestial  being;  his  long,  heavy, 
white  eyebrows  struck  me  forcibly.  His  little  room  was  tidy, 
though  it  partook  a  good  deal  of  the  character  of  a  laboratory. 
He  was  wrapped  in  a  quilted  morning-gown  of  light  purple 
silk;  he  had  been  at  work  writing  on  the  "Life  of  Napoleon.'* 


366       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

He  writes  close  lines,  rather  curved  as  they  go  from  left  to 
right,  and  puts  an  immense  deal  on  very  little  paper.  ...  I 
talked  little,  but,  believe  me,  I  listened  and  observed. 

Two  days  later  Audubon  paid  Scott  a  second  visit,  this 
time  with  his  portfolio,  but  little  was  recorded  of  this 
interview  other  than  that  it  was  more  agreeable  than 
the  first,  and  that  he  greatly  admired  the  accomplished 
Miss  Scott,  to  whom  he  later  sent  as  a  gift  the  first 
number  of  his  plates.  Audubon's  drawings  were  ex- 
hibited at  a  meeting  of  the  Royal  Society  over  which 
Sir  Walter  presided,  and  Scott  was  also  in  attendance 
at  the  Royal  Institution  when  Audubon's  large  paint- 
ing of  the  Black  Cocks  was  shown.  "We  talked  much" 
on  this  occasion,  said  the  naturalist,  "and  I  would  have 
gladly  joined  him  in  a  glass  of  wine,  but  my  foolish 
habits  prevented  me."  This  restriction  on  wine  was 
soon  removed,  as  was  that  on  whisky,  whether  of  the 
Scotch  or  Kentucky  brand,  and  during  his  later  life  in 
America  Audubon  was  never  a  teetotaler  by  any  means. 
While  at  the  Exhibition  Sir  Walter  pointed  to  Land- 
seer's  picture  of  the  dying  stag,  saying,  "many  such 
scenes,  Mr.  Audubon,  have  I  witnessed  in  my  younger 
days."  Audubon  was  doubtless  too  polite  to  express  an 
opinion  of  that  popular  artist,  though  of  that  very  pic- 
ture he  had  written  in  his  journal  three  days  before  that 
there  was  no  nature  in  it,  and  that  he  considered  it  a 
farce;  "the  stag,"  he  said,  "had  his  tongue  out,  and  his 
mouth  shut!  The  principal  dog,  a  greyhound,  held  the 
deer  by  one  ear,  just  as  if  a  loving  friend;  the  young 
hunter  had  laced  the  deer  by  one  horn  very  prettily, 
and  in  the  attitude  of  a  ballet-dancer  was  about  to  cast 
the  noose  over  the  head  of  the  animal." 

Scott  and  Audubon  were  kindred  spirits  in  their  love 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS          367 

of  sport,  of  wild  and  untameable  nature,  as  well  as  of 
man  in  his  Homeric  relation  to  it.  Shortly  after  their 
first  interview  the  great  Scotsman  wrote  this  handsome 
tribute  in  his  journal: 

January  22  [1827]. — A  visit  from  Basil  Hall  with  Mr. 
Audubon,  the  ornithologist,  who  has  followed  that  pursuit  by 
many  a  long  wandering  in  the  American  forests.  He  is  an 
American  by  naturalization,  a  Frenchman  by  birth ;  but  less  of 
a  Frenchman  than  I  have  ever  seen — no  dash,  or  glimmer,  or 
shine  about  him,  but  great  simplicity  of  manners  and  behaviour ; 
slight  in  person,  and  plainly  dressed;  wears  long  hair,  which 
time  has  not  yet  tinged;  his  countenance  acute,  handsome  and 
interesting,  but  still  simplicity  is  the  predominant  character- 
istic. 

Of  the  later  visit  of  which  we  just  spoke  we  find  this 
account : 

January  24. — Visit  from  Mr.  Audubon,  who  brings  some 
of  his  birds.  The  drawings  are  of  the  first  order — the  atti- 
tudes of  the  birds  of  the  most  animated  character,  and  the 
situations  appropriate ;  one  of  a  snake  attacking  a  bird's  nest, 
while  the  birds  (the  parents)  peck  at  the  reptile's  eyes — they 
usually,  in  the  long-run,  destroy  him,  says  the  naturalist.  The 
feathers  of  these  gay  little  sylphs,  most  of  them  from  the 
Southern  States,  are  most  brilliant,  and  are  represented  with 
what,  were  it  [not]  connected  with  so  much  spirit  in  the  atti- 
tude, I  would  call  a  laborious  degree  of  execution.  This  ex- 
treme correctness  is  of  the  utmost  consequence  to  the  natural- 
ist, [but]  as  I  think  (having  no  knowledge  of  vertu),  rather 
gives  a  stiffness  to  the  drawings.  This  sojourner  in  the  desert 
has  been  in  the  woods  for  months  together.  He  preferred  as- 
sociating with  the  Indians  to  the  company  of  the  Back  Settlers ; 
very  justly,  I  daresay,  for  a  civilized  man  of  the  lower  order — 
that  is,  the  dregs  of  civilization — when  thrust  back  on  the  sav- 
age state  becomes  worse  than  a  savage.  .  .  . 


368      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

The  Indians,  he  says,  are  dying  fast ;  they  seem  to  pine  and 
die  whenever  the  white  population  approaches  them.  The 
Shawanese,  who  amounted,  Mr.  Audubon  says,  to  some  thou- 
sands within  his  memory,  are  almost  extinct,  and  so  are  vari- 
ous other  tribes.  Mr.  Audubon  could  never  hear  any  tradition 
about  the  mammoth,  though  he  made  anxious  inquiries.  He 
gives  no  countenance  to  the  idea  that  the  red  Indians  were  ever 
a  more  civilized  people  than  at  this  day,  or  that  a  more  civilized 
people  had  preceded  them  in  North  America.  He  refers  the 
bricks,  etc.,  occasionally  found,  and  appealed  to  in  support  of 
this  opinion,  to  the  earlier  settlers, — or,  where  kettles  and  other 
utensils  may  have  been  found,  to  the  early  trade  between  the 
Indians  and  the  Spaniards. 

Audubon  was  anxious  to  receive  a  written  recom- 
mendation from  the  great  "Wizard  of  the  North"  touch- 
ing the  merits  of  his  work,  the  publication  of  which  had 
just  begun,  but  Sir  Walter  Scott  sensibly  demurred,  on 
the  ground  that  his  knowledge  of  natural  history  was 
insufficient  to  qualify  him  to  pass  expert  judgment. 
"But,"  he  added,  "I  can  easily  and  truly  say,  that  what 
I  have  had  the  pleasure  of  seeing,  touching  your  talents 
and  manners,  corresponds  with  all  I  have  heard  in  your 
favor;  and  I  am  a  sincere  believer  in  the  extent  of  your 
scientific  attainments." 

While  Audubon  was  playing  the  role  of  society's 
pet  lion  at  Edinburgh  in  the  winter  of  1827,  he  was 
painting  to  meet  the  expense  of  engraving  his  first 
plates,  and  writing  at  odd  times  of  the  day  or  night. 
On  February  20  he  recorded  that  his  paper  on  the 
"Habits  of  the  Wild  Pigeon  of  America"  was  begun  on 
the  previous  Wednesday,  and  finished  at  half  past  three 
in  the  morning;  so  completely,  said  he,  was  he  trans- 
ported to  the  woods  of  America  and  to  the  pigeons, 
that  his  ears  "were  as  if  really  filled  with  the  noise  of 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  369 

their  wings" ;  yet  he  added  that  were  it  not  for  the  facts 
it  contained,  he  would  not  give  a  cent  for  it,  "nor  any- 
body else,  I  dare  say."  Four  days  later,  at  the  Wer- 
nerian  Society,  he  read  his  paper  on  the  rattlesnake, 
but  the  torrent  of  abuse  which  soon  rewarded  his  efforts 
in  this  direction  finally  led  him  to  reserve  all  literary 
efforts  for  a  future  and  more  propitious  time.16 

A  large  painting  begun  in  January  of  this  year, 
called  "Pheasants  attacked  by  a  Fox,"  was  probably  a 
variant  of  the  "Pheasants  attacked  by  a  Dog"  (illus- 
trated at  page  394 ) ,  the  original  of  which  is  now  in  the 
American  Museum  of  Natural  History,  New  York 
City.  This  canvas,  which  was  exhibited  by  the  Scottish 
Society  of  Artists  in  February,  1827,  measured  nine  by 
six  feet,  and  was  the  largest  piece  he  had  ever  attempted. 
"Sometimes  I  like  the  picture,"  he  said,  and  "then  a 
heat  rises  in  my  face  and  I  think  it  a  miserable  daub." 
"As  to  the  birds,"  he  added,  "so  far  as  they  are  con- 
cerned I  am  quite  satisfied,  but  the  ground,  the  foliage, 
the  sky,  the  distance,  are  dreadful."  17 

In  the  spring  of  1827  Audubon  enjoyed  the  novel 
sensation  of  going  to  church  in  a  sedan  chair,  and  of 
hearing  Sidney  Smith  preach.  "He  pleased  me  at 
times,"  he  said,  "by  painting  my  foibles  with  care,  and 
again  I  felt  the  color  come  to  my  cheeks  as  he  por- 
trayed my  sins."  Later  there  was  an  opportunity  to 
meet  the  famous  preacher  with  his  fair  daughter,  and 
to  show  them  his  drawings  of  American  birds. 

The  following  letter  18  was  sent  at  this  time  to  his 
wife  in  America: 

"See  Chapter  XXVIII. 

"Maria  R.  Audubon,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  204. 

18  Which  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  his  granddaughter,  Miss  Maria  R. 
Audubon;  it  is  superscribed  "Mrs.  Audubon,  St.  Francisville,  Bayou  Sarah, 
Louisville,  p  Wm  Penn;"  it  reached  New  Orleans  on  June  13,  and  is 
endorsed  as  answered  on  June  23. 


370       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Audubon  to  his  Wife 

EDINBURGH  March  10t*  1027. 
MY  DEAREST  FRIEND 

I  am  now  proud  that  I  can  announce  thee  the  result  of  the 
last  meeting  of  the  Royal  Society  of  Edinburgh.  I  was 
unanimously  elected  a  Foreign  Member  of  that  Institution  on 
the  5*1?  Instant  and  am  at  last  an  F.  R.  S.  . — Wilt  thou  not 
think  it  wonderful ;  to  me  it  is  like  a  dream,  and  quite  as  much 
so  when  I  see  the  particular  attentions  paid  me  by  all  ranks  of 
the  best  Society.  On  the  6S  I  received  the  official  Letter  from 
the  Secretary  with  the  seal  of  the  Society  and  the  arms  of 
Scotland — this  along  with  my  other  diplomas  and  Letters,  I 
assure  thee  enable  me  to  be  respected  and  well  received  in  any 
portion  of  the  Civilized  World.  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  also 
been  so  kind  as  to  give  me  a  Letter  that  I  may  exhibit  wherever 
I  may  go==I  have  Two  Letters  from  him  very  kind=all  this  I 
think  will  afford  thee  great  Pleasure. 

I  am  now  preparing  to  leave  Edinburgh  and  will  do  so  in 
a  few  days,  I  am  now  anxious  to  visit  London  as  soon  as  I 
possibly  can,  and  yet  want  to  spend  a  few  days  at  New  Castle, 
York,  Liverpool,  Dublin,  then  back  again  to  England,  go  by 
Cambridge  and  Oxford. — If  I  meet  the  success  that  I  expect 
in  that  Tour  it  is  very  probable  that  soon  after  my  reaching 
London,  I  will  write  for  thee  to  Come,  and  when  I  do  so,  my 
Lucy  may  come  without  the  least  Hesitation  for  I  will  then  be 
ready  to  receive  her ! 

Since  my  last  of  the  2£d  of  February,  I  have  received  thine 
of  the  31*  of  December,  3d  of  January  and  8l±  of  D?  this  last 
mostly  John's,  I  am  particularly  glad  that  thou  hast  left  the 
Beech  Woods,  yet  thou  might  as  well  have  given  me  at  once 
thy  good  reasons  for  doing  so.  I  hope  that  at  this  Instant 
that  I  am  writing,  thou  art  snug  and  comfortably  settled  afresh. 

The  Trees  and  Segments  have  not  yet  arrived,  but  I  hope 
to  hear  soon  that  they  have — I  have  not  a  word  about  the 
Seeds  reaching  yet.  do  my  Love  always  say  by  what  vessel  any 
thing  comes,  as  John  as  concluded  to  take  Lessons  of  Music 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  371 

I  have  no  wish  to  sell  my  Gun  but  wish  to  give  it  him  as  his 
ow[n]  in  Fee  Simple,  as  soon  as  he  deserves  it  -from  thy  own 
Hands.  May  God  bless  him! — if  all  continues  well  with  me 
Victor  and  him  may  rise  to  eminence  and  therefore  try  Johny's 
Spunk,  do  beg  or  make  him  draw  all  kinds  of  Limbs  of  Trees 
or  Flowers  for  me  and  whenever  he  kills  a  bird  of  any  kind  tell 
him  to  measure  the  Guts  particularly  and  make  a  regular  list 
of  the  names  of  the  Birds,  length  and  thickness  of  those  Guts 
and  their  contents—19 

I  wrote  a  long  letter  to  each  Victor  and  N.  Berthoud  on 
the  27  February,  but  not  a  word  from  either  of  them  as  yet 
reached  me.  I  was  quite  shocked  to  see  thy  last  letter  of  the 
8th  of  January  without  the  print  of  thy  new  Seals,  I  am  quite 
frightened  at  thy  watch  not  having  reachd  thee,  yet  I  hope  every 
new  Letter  will  bring  me  better  tidings.  I  now  collecting  Let- 
ters from  all  my  Friends  here  and  will  have  God  knows  enough 
of  them.  I  only  hope  I  may  soon  be  in  a  regular  way  of  making 
a  comfortable  living  for  ourselves  all: 

All  the  papers  and  books  I  send  thee  mention  my  name.  My 
work  is  lookd  upon  as  unrivalled  in  any  Country,  I  will  soon 
know  how  it  will  pay. — I  can  only  add  that  I  will  write  to  thee 
from  all  the  places  I  visit=Let  Victor  have  a  copy  of  this= 
Collect  all  kinds  of  Curiosities  whatever— try  to  send  or  bring 
with  thee  but  send  first  if  Possible  Live  Birds  of  hardy  kinds 
such  as  Blue  Jays  by  THEMSELVES.  Red  Birds  D°.  red  wingd 
Starling  D°,  Partridges  &c  &9 — present  my  humble  respects  to 
M£  &  M^  Johnsons  an  remembrances  to  good  Friend  bourgeat 
—try  to  send  me  an  account  of  the  growing  of  Cotton  from 
A  to  Z,  written  by  an  able  Planter — I  wish  thee  to  make  regu- 
lar memorandums  thyself  respecting  all  about  Habits  &  Lo- 
calities &c  &£=thou  wilst  scarce  believe  that  this  day  there 
[are]  in  many  places  16  feet  of  snow,  the  weather  has  been 
tremendous — yet  with  all  this  no  Invitation  is  ever  laid  aside 

"John  Woodhouse  Audubon  at  this  time  was  in  his  fifteenth  year,  and 
this  injunction  regarding  the  internal  anatomy  of  birds,  to  which  ornitholo- 
gists had  hitherto  paid  but  little  attention,  was  given  three  years  before 
his  father  made  the  acquaintance  of  MacGillivray.  (See  Chapter  XXX.) 


372       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

and  the  other  evening  I  went  to  Diner  in  a  Hackny  Coach 
drawn  by  4  Horses,  and  to  church  on  Sunday  last  in  a  Sedan 
chair  to  hear  the  famous  Sidney  Smith,  curious  diferences  of 
manners  here  I  assure  thee. 

I  have  seen  and  know  personally  all  the  great  men  of  Scot- 
land and  many  of  England. 

What  a  curious  interesting  book  a  Biographer — well  acquainted 
with  my  Life  could  write,  it  is  still  more  wonderfull  and  ex- 
traordinary than  that  of  my  Father ! 

Fear  not  my  connecting  myself  in  any  way  with  Charles  M. 
he  is  a  mere  worm  on  the  hearth,  and  since  he  has  abandoned 
his  Grand  Flora  is  out  of  my  books — it  has  perhaps  been  an 
error  in  our  Lives  that  thou  didst  not  come  with  me.  So  much 
indeed  do  I  now  think  so  that  I  have  advised  CapS  Hall  to 
take  his  Lady  and  child  with  him.  be  sure  to  pave  the  way  for 
them  to  Judge  Mathews  and  N.  Berthoud  to  whom  I  have  given 
him  letters  to. — I  send  thee  his  Travels,  read  his  interview  with 
Napoleon;  I  write  my  Journal  every  day,  it  seems  that  that 
portion  of  it  forwardd  thee  long  ago  as  never  reachd  thee  as 
thou  dost  not  mention  it.  I  am  sorry  for  all  these  little  mis- 
fortunes and  can  hardly  a/c  for  them.  I  have  not  heard  from 
H.  Clay  but  will  refresh  his  memory,  I  hope  at  the  same  time  to 
receive  a  Letter  from  the  Presidential  hope  this  day  the  last 
beautiful  broach  I  sent  thee  as  a  new  Years  gift  is  shining  on 
thy  bosom,  as  I  have  witnessed  the  brightness  of  thy  own  sweet 
Eyes,  oh  my  Lucy  what  would  I  give  now  in  my  possession  for 

a  kiss  on  thy  Lips  and God  for  ever  bless  thee  thine 

Husband  and  Friend  for  ever —  JOHN  J.  AUDUBON 

F.  R.  S.  E.  Fellow     Royal  Society  Edinburgh— 

F.  A.  S.—  D9          D9.        D9       antiquarians— 

M.  W.  S.  N.  H.— -Member  Wernerian  Society  of  Natural  His- 
tory 

M.  S.  A.—  D9       Society  of  Arts  of  Scotland— 

M.  P.  L.  S. —  D2       Philosophical   &  Literary   Society 

Liverpool 
M.  L.  N.  Y.— -  D9       Lyceum  of  New  York. 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  373 

MY  DEAR  JOHN — 

I  am  very  thankfull  to  you  for  your  Letters  con- 
tinue to  write  from  time  to  time,  draw,  and  study  music 
closely,  there  is  time  for  all  things — I  give  you  my  Gun 
with  all  my  Heart  best  wishes,  but  earn  it  at  your  Dear 
Mamma's  will — God  bless  You — 

Your  Father  and  Friend — 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON 


At  Edinburgh  Audubon  met  a  young  landscape 
painter,  Joseph  B.  Kidd,  and  the  two  worked  together 
for  some  time,  Kidd  receiving  instruction  in  animal 
painting  and  Audubon  hints  on  the  treatment  of  his 
landscapes,  which  had  always  been  a  source  of  trouble 
to  him.  Kidd  was  Audubon's  Edinburgh  agent  for  a 
time,  and  later  entered  upon  the  ambitious  project  of 
reproducing  all  of  his  birds  in  oils,  as  will  be  noticed 
later.20 

On  March  17,  1827,  when  the  second  number  of  his 
Birds  was  in  preparation,  Audubon  boldly  issued  his 
"Prospectus,"  contrary  to  the  advice  of  some  of  his 
friends,  who  could  see  only  egregious  folly  in  such  an 
undertaking  and  regarded  it  as  foredoomed  to  failure. 
As  everybody  knows,  it  is  easier  to  say  things  than  to 
do  them,  but  all  these  friendly  critics  sang  a  different 
tune  later  on,  when  they  had  seen  more  of  the  indom- 
itable will  and  self-reliance  of  the  man,  who  was  to 
carry  steadily  forward  to  a  successful  issue  a  work 
which  was  in  press  nearly  twelve  years  and  which  cost 
over  $100,000  to  produce.  In  Audubon's  original 
prospectus  of  The  Birds  of  America  the  specifications 
as  to  the  form,  size,  and  cost  of  the  work,  which  had 
been  determined  for  some  months,  underwent  little 

"See  Chapter  XXV. 


374       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

change  in  subsequent  editions  of  this  printed  state- 
ment.21 

Audubon  left  Edinburgh  for  London  on  Apri    5, 
1827,  with  locks  shorn  but  energy  unabated.     \  l 
lowed  a  roundabout  course,  visiting  Belford,  "Mitford 
Castle,"   Newcastle-upon-Tyne,   York,   Leeds,   Liver 
pool,  and  Shrewsbury,  at  every  point  extending  his  ac- 
quaintance, showing  his  drawings  to  many,  and  adding 
appreciably  to  his  growing  list  of  subscribers, 
days  were  spent  in  hunting  and  drawing  birds  with  the 
Selbys,  at  their  beautiful  country  place  called  '  Twizel 
House,"  at  Belford,  in  Northumberland,  where  he  was 
soon  made  to  feel  as  much  at  home  as  with  his  older 
Liverpool  friends,  the  Rathbones,  at  "Green  Bank." 
P.  J.  Selby,  after  whom  Audubon  named  a  Flycatcher 
which  appeared  in  his  second  number,  was  an  amateur 
artist  and  ornithologist,  and  at  that  time  was  engaged 
upon  an  extensive  publication  to  which  Audubon  was 

"The  work,   as   originally   announced,   was   to   appear   in   parts   of  5 
plates  each    at  ^  guinea's  a  part,  and  in  order  to  distribute  the  expense 
to  purchasers  it  was  expected  to  issue  but  5  parts  a  year, 
to  be  engraved  on  copper,  were  of  double  elephant  folio  size,  and  printe 
on  paper  of  the  finest  quality,  all  the  birds  and  flowers  to  be  life-size,  a 
S"  carefully    colored    by    hand,    after    the    originals;    -y    subscriber 
was    at    liberty    to    take    a    part    or    the    whole       It    jas    stated    m    the 
prospectus  of  1829,  when   10  parts  had  been  published:    "There  are  < 
Drawings,   and   it  is   proposed  that   they   shall  comprise   Three   Volumes 
each    confining    133    Plates,    to    which    an    Index    will    be    given    at 
end  of  each,  J  be  bound  up  with  the  volume.  It  would  be  advisable 

for    the    subscriber    to    procure    a    Portfolio,    to    keep    the    NwabeW 
a   volume    is    completed."     To    avoid   the    expense    entailed   by   copyrr 
regulations  in  England,  indices  and  all  other  letterpress  were  eventually 
omitted;  the  number  of  parts  was  extended  to  87,  or  435  plates,  and  the 
number  of  volumes  to  4,  a  necessity  imposed  by  the  discovery  of 
new   birds,   even    after   the   omission   of   the   figures    of   the    eggs,   whi 
Audubon  had  reserved   for  the  close,  and  the   undue  crowding  of 
of  his   final   plates.     The   "Prospectus"    issued   with   the   first   volume    of 
the  text   in   1831   contained  a  list   of  the  first    100   plates,  together   witl 
extracts   of  reviews   by  Cuvier   and   Swainson,   and   a  list   of  subscnb 
to  the  number  of  180.     For  further  details,  see  Bibliography,  No.  1,  a 
Appendix  III,  No.  2. 


TO  EUROPE  AND  SUCCESS  375 


invited  to  contribute,  a  single  volume  of  plates  and  text 
having  then  been  published.22 

At  Newcastle,  where  Audubon  spent  a  week,  he 
saw  much  of  its  grand  old  man,  Thomas  Bewick,  "the 
first  wood  cutter  in  the  world,"  and  conceived  a  deep 
regard  for  him,  which  he  afterwards  expressed  in  one 
of  his  "Episodes."  As  they  parted,  this  great  son  of 
nature  held  him  closely  by  the  hand,  and  for  the  third 
time  repeated,  "God  preserve  you!"  "I  looked  at  him 
in  such  a  manner,"  said  Audubon,  "that  I  am  sure  he 
understood  I  could  not  speak." 

33  Illustrations  of  British  Ornithology,  by  Prideaux  John  Selby.  The 
British  Museum  copy  of  this  work  is  in  two  large  folio  volumes  (measur- 
ing about  25%  by  20y2  inches),  and  was  issued  originally  in  numbers 
which  appeared  at  irregular  intervals.  Vol.  I,  plates  i-iv  (of  bills,  heads, 
and  feet),  i-c  (of  land  birds) ;  most  of  the  plates  are  by  Selby,  and  many 
were  etched  by  him  and  autographed,  1819-1821 ;  plates  xiv,  xvi,  and  xx  are 
by  Captain  R.  Mitford,  whose  home,  "Mitford  Castle,"  near  Morpeth, 
Northumberland,  was  visited  by  Audubon  in  April,  1827;  published  at 
Edinburgh  by  Archibald  Constable  &  Co.,  and  by  Hurst,  Robinson  & 
Co.,  London,  1825  (?)-1827.  Volume  II,  plates  i-ciii;  printed  for  the 
Proprietor  &  published  by  W.  H.  Lizars,  Longman,  Rees,  Orme,  Brown, 
Green  &  Longman,  London;  and  W.  Curry,  Junr.  &  Co.,  Dublin, 
MDCCCXXXIV.  Quaritch,  in  offering  a  copy  in  1887,  at  £55,  stated 
that  there  were  383  figures,  in  221  colored  plates,  and  that  the  pub- 
lished price  was  £105.  Newton  (Dictionary  of  Birds,  p.  27)  says  that 
the  first  series  of  these  "Illustrations"  was  published  in  cooperation  with 
Sir  William  Jardine,  in  3  volumes  of  150  plates,  in  1827-1835,  after  which 
a  second  series  was  started  by  them,  and  completed  in  a  single  volume 
of  53  plates,  issued  in  1843.  This  was  the  "job  book"  mentioned  earlier 
in  this  chapter  (see  p.  358),  but  neither  Jardine's  nor  Jameson's  name  is 
mentioned  in  the  volumes  which  I  have  examined. 

In  a  letter  to  Audubon,  dated  "Sept.  I3h  1830  Twizel  [1?]  House,"  and 
postmarked  "Belford,"  Selby  said:  "I  expect  to  bring  my  own  work  to  a 
conclusion  during  the  course  of  this  winter  having  only  the  plates  of  another 
Number  to  finish.  I  am  happy  to  add  that  the  Work  is  doing  well  &  is 
more  than  paying  itself.  The  second  Vol:  of  letter  press  will  appear  with 
the  last  NO." 

Two  volumes  of  text  were  published  in  1825  and  1833  respectively; 
the  first,  after  readjustment  to  fit  the  "quinarian  doctrine,"  to  which 
Selby  was  a  temporary  convert  (see  Vol.  II,  p.  94),  was  issued  in  a  second 
edition  at  London,  in  1841 ;  the  second  volume  bore  the  imprint  of  Lizars, 
who  soon  after  began  to  work  for  Audubon. 

Selby's  plates  were  for  the  most  part  rather  crudely  drawn,  etched 
and  colored,  and  could  be  commended  only  as  the  work  of  amateurs 
who  strove  for  accuracy. 


376       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

As  he  proceeded  southward,  his  subscription  list 
augmented  apace,  Manchester  alone  giving  him  eighteen 
new  names,  and  he  began  to  feel  more  sanguine  of  suc- 
cess, if,  he  added,  "I  continue  to  be  honest,  industrious, 
and  consistent." 


CHAPTER   XXIII 

AUDUBON  IN  LONDON 

Impressions  of  the  metropolis— A  trunk  full  of  letters— Friendship  of 
Children — Sir  Thomas  Lawrence — Lizars  stops  work — A  family  of 
artists — Robert  Havell,  Junior — The  Birds  of  America  fly  to  London — 
The  Zoological  Gallery — Crisis  in  the  naturalist's  affairs — Royal 
patronage — Interview  with  Gallatin — Interesting  the  Queen — Desertion 
of  patrons — Painting  to  independence — Personal  habits  and  tastes — 
Enters  the  Linnaean  Society— The  White-headed  Eagle— Visit  to  the 
great  universities— Declines  to  write  for  magazines— Audubon-Swain- 
son  correspondence — "Highfield  Hall"  near  Tyttenhanger — In  Paris 
with  Swainson — Glimpses  of  Cuvier — His  report  on  The  Birds  of 
America — Patronage  of  the  French  Government  and  the  Duke  of 
Orleans — Bonaparte  the  naturalist. 

Audubon  reached  London  on  May  21,  1827,  and 
put  up  at  the  "Bull  and  Mouth"  tavern,  but  soon  moved 
into  more  permanent  lodgings  at  number  55  Great 
Russell  Street,  near  the  British  Museum.  Though  for 
a  long  time  eager  to  see  the  capital,  no  sooner  had  he 
reached  it  than  he  was  anxious  to  be  away  and  more 
homesick  than  ever  for  his  family  and  his  beloved 
America.  London  then  seemed  to  him  "like  the  mouth 
of  an  immense  monster,  guarded  by  millions  of  sharp- 
edged  teeth,"  from  which  he  could  escape  only  by 
miracle. 

He  had  brought  with  him  a  formidable  array  of 
letters  addressed  to  the  elite  of  the  capital,1  and  he  bore 

1  Among  the  sixty  or  more  persons  to  whom  Audubon  carried  written 
credentials  at  this  time  were  the  following:  the  Duke  of  Northumberland, 
Robert  Peel,  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  Sir  J.  D.  Aukland,  Albert  Gallatin, 
the  American  Minister,  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  David  Wilkie,  Dr.  Buck- 
land,  Dr.  Holland,  Dr.  Roget,  Dr.  Wollaston,  William  Swainson,  Sir 
William  Herschel,  and  his  son,  afterwards  Sir  John  Herschel,  John  George 
Children,  R.  W.  Hay,  N.  A.  Vigors,  Captain  Cook,  John  Murray  and 
Robert  Bakewell  (see  Vol.  II,  p,  134). 

.'377 


378      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

besides  nearly  a  trunkful  for  the  Continent,  as  well  as 
general  letters  from  Henry  Clay,  Andrew  Jackson  and 
others  in  America  for  our  consular  and  diplomatic  rep- 
resentatives in  Europe.  His  epistolary  basis  for  the 
acquisition  of  useful  acquaintances  could  hardly  have 
been  better,  and  further  testimonials  were  gathered  at 
every  stage  of  his  progress  to  the  city  of  his  hopes,  but 
Audubon's  best  letter  of  credit,  which  could  be  read  by 
all  the  world,  was  an  open,  winning  countenance.  After 
he  had  wandered  over  London  for  the  greater  part  of 
three  days  without  finding  a  single  individual  at  home, 
he  was  tempted  to  consign  his  valuable  documents  to 
the  post,  an  error  which  he  did  not  repeat,  as  it  deprived 
him  of  the  acquaintance  of  fully  one-half  of  the  people 
to  whom  they  were  addressed.  One  of  these  London 
letters  which  follows,  written  by  Captain  Basil  Hall  to 
John  Murray,  the  noted  publisher  and  founder  of  the 
Quarterly  Review,  is  particularly  interesting  in  show- 
ing that  Audubon  was  far  from  pleased  with  the  prog- 
ress of  his  work  in  Edinburgh,  and  that  he  was  then 
contemplating  a  change  which  was  later  effected. 

Basil  Hall  to  John  Murray 

EDINB  23rd  Feby.  1827 
MY  DEAR  SIR 

This  will  be  delivered  to  you  by  my  friend  Mr  John  Audu- 
bon, an  American  Gentleman  who  has  been  residing  here  this 
winter,  &  I  beg  in  the  most  particular  manner  to  introduce  him 
to  your  acquaintance  and  to  ask  for  him  the  advantage  of  your 
good  offices. 

Mr  Audubon  has  spent  [a]  great  part  of  his  life  in  making 
a  collection  of  drawings  of  the  Birds  of  North  America,  &  in 
studying  their  Habits,  with  the  intention  of  publishing  a  Com- 
plete Ornithology  of  America.  For  such  a  work  his  materials, 
both  in  the  shape  of  drawings  and  of  written  notes,  are  immense 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  379 

and  he  is  now  going  to  London  in  order  to  set  this  gigantic  work 
in  motion. 

Mr  Audubon,  however,  is  not  very  well  versed  in  the  details 
of  such  matters,  &  therefore  I  beg  of  you  to  have  the  goodness 
to  aid  him  with  your  advice  on  the  occasion — to  introduce  en- 
gravers printers  &  so  forth  to  him,  and  generally  speaking  to 
put  him  in  the  way  of  bringing  out  his  work  in  an  advantageous 
manner  to  himself. 

I  trust  all  this  will  give  you  no  more  trouble  than  you  will 
be  willing  to  take  at  my  earnest  solicitation. 
I  remain  Ever,  My  Dear  Sir, 
Most  Sincerely  Yrs 

BASIL  HALL. 
JOHN  MURRAY  Esqr 

Audubon  carried  also  a  long  letter  from  "Mr. 
Hay,"  2  dated  at  "16  Athol  Crescent,  Edinburgh,  15 
March,  1827,"  and  addressed  to  the  care  of  his  brother, 
Robert  William  Hay,  of  Downing  Street,  West,  in 
which  this  curious  statement  occurs:  "Mr.  A.  is  son  of 
the  late  French  Admiral  Audubon,  but  has  himself  lived 
from  the  cradle  in  the  United  States,  having  been  born 
in  one  of  the  French  colonies." 

The  document  which  was  to  prove  of  greatest  service 
to  him,  however,  was  addressed  to  John  George  Chil- 
dren,8 then  in  charge  of  the  Department  of  Zoology  in 

•Probably  the  same  that  is  referred  to  in  his  journals  as  "Mr.  Hays, 
the  antiquarian." 

«J.  G.  Children  (1777-1852)  was  early  interested  in  chemistry,  and 
at  Tunbridge  built  a  good  laboratory,  in  which  Humphry  Davy  con- 
ducted many  of  his  early  experiments,  and  while  there  was  seriously  in- 
jured in  October,  1812.  In  1824  Children  discovered  a  method  of  extract- 
ing silver  without  the  use  of  mercury.  When  Mr.  Children,  Senior,  be- 
came insolvent  through  the  failure  of  his  bank,  his  son  obtained  a  position 
at  the  British  Museum;  in  1816  he  was  librarian  in  the  Department  of 
Antiquities,  but  in  1823  he  was  transferred  to  a  post  in  zoology  which 
was  eagerly  sought  by  William  Swainson;  he  was  secretary  of  the  Royal 
Society  in  1826-27,  and  again  in  1835-37.  He  resigned  his  position  at  the 
Museum  in  1840,  when  Swainson  was  again  an  unsuccessful  candidate,  and 


380      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

the  British  Museum  and  secretary  of  the  Royal  Society. 
Children  assumed  the  management  of  Audubon's  work 
when  he  returned  to  America  in  1829  and  again  in 
1831 ;  to  him  and  Lord  Stanley,  in  1830,  the  naturalist 
probably  owed  his  nomination  to  membership  in  the 
Royal  Society. 

Soon  after  reaching  London  Audubon  paid  his  re- 
spects to  Sir  Thomas  Lawrence,  for  whom  he  had  two 
letters,  and  made  an  appointment  for  showing  his  work 
to  this  famous  artist.  He  was  also  gratified  to  receive 
the  subscription  of  Lord  Stanley  and  of  Charles  Lucien 
Bonaparte,  who  was  then  in  London. 

Audubon  had  not  been  in  London  a  month  before 
word  was  received  from  Lizars  that  all  his  colorers  had 
struck  work  and  that  everything  was  at  a  stand.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  began  to  search  London  for  skilled  work- 
men, and  on  June  18  wrote:  "I  went  five  times  to  see 
Mr.  Havell,  the  colorer,  but  he  was  out  of  town.  I  am 
full  of  anxiety  and  greatly  depressed.  Oh!  how  sick 
I  am  of  London!"  Three  days  later  another  discour- 
aging letter  came  from  Lizars,  who  shortly  after  threw 
up  his  contract  and  left  his  patron  in  a  sad  predica- 
ment— with  an  enormously  expensive  work,  still-born, 
on  his  hands,  without  adequate  funds,  and,  in  short, 
with  all  his  cherished  plans  suspended  in  mid-air.  Audu- 
bon no  doubt  realized  that  if  his  grand  undertaking 
were  to  succeed  at  all,  it  must  experience  a  new  birth 
in  London,  where  an  expert  engraver  of  the  requisite 
enterprise  and  zeal  must  be  found  without  delay.  He 
closed  his  journal  on  the  second  day  of  July  with  the 

was  succeeded  by  J.  E.  Gray  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  353).  Children  was  not  a  pro- 
ductive zoologist,  but  has  been  described  as  a  lovable  soul,  who  was  never 
soured  by  illness  or  other  misfortunes,  and  who  was  as  zealous  in  his  friend- 
ships as  in  science.  See  "A.  A."  (Anna  Atkins),  Memoir  of  J.  O.  Children, 
Esq.  (Bibl.  No.  175). 


JOHN'  JAMES  AUBUBOH; 

.feltew  tftfo  fiet/at  Secietits  ef£0/ubn,  &£dm6urg-/j  an 

Zltwa&&&  Zwkg'tcat  Scat  ties  ef^cndea 
JWcm&erefffe  JVatura/  ffisfary  Sect'ety  ef/kris,  cfl/tt:  Zycetsm  ~ 
of  tic  fbilesepbical' Society  and,  t6e  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences 
of  tbc  Natural  flisfoiy  Society  0fJ30st#n  ef  Gbarles&m. 


Riblished  Ty  the  Author. 
Vol.  H. 

1831.       34. 

TITLE   PAGE   OF  THE   ORIGINAL  EDITION   OF  "THE   BIRDS   OF   AMERICA,"   VOLUME 

II,    1831-1834. 


381 


382       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

remark  that  he  was  too  dull  and  mournful  to  write  a 
line,  and  it  was  not  opened  again  for  nearly  three  months. 
This  gap  in  Audubon's  record  can  now  be  filled  in 
reference  to  some  important  particulars,  for  in  the  in- 
terval he  made  his  greatest  discovery  in  England,  in 
Robert  Havell,  Junior,  then  a  young  and  unknown 
artist  of  thirty-four,  who  through  eleven  years  of  the 
closest  association  with  his  new  patron  was  to  become 
one  of  the  greatest  engravers  in  aquatint  the  world  has 
ever  seen.  Until  recently  the  intimate  story  of  Audu- 
bon's relation  to  the  Havells  has  been  much  obscured.4 
The  reference  in  the  journal  record  of  June  19,  just 
given,  was  undoubtedly  to  Robert  Havell,  Senior,  who 
for  many  years  was  associated  with  his  father,  Daniel 
Havell,  the  first  of  five  generations  of  artists  of  that 
name,  in  the  engraving  and  publishing  business,  but 
who  at  this  time  was  established  independently  at  79 
Newman  Street,  London;  he  also  conducted  a  shop 
called  the  "Zoological  Gallery,"  at  which  were  sold  en- 
gravings, books,  artists'  materials,  naturalists'  supplies, 
and  specimens  of  natural  history  of  every  sort.  His 
three  sons,  Robert,  George,  and  Henry  Augustus,  all 
became  artists,  but  the  eldest,  who  bore  his  father's 
name,  was  educated  for  a  learned  profession.  Contrary 
to  his  father's  injunctions  and  advice,  Robert,  who  was 
bent  on  becoming  an  artist,  abruptly  left  his  home  in 
1825,  determined  to  shift  for  himself.  He  began  with 
an  extensive  sketching  tour  on  the  River  Wye,  in  Mon- 
mouthshire, and  produced  numerous  paintings  which, 


*  In  the  account  which  follows,  as  well  as  in  numerous  instances  in 
Chapter  XXXII,  I  am  most  indebted  to  George  Alfred  Williams,  who 
in  "Robert  Havell,  Junior,  Engraver  of  Audubon's  The  Birds  of  America," 
(Bibl.  No.  232)  (Print-Collectors  Quarterly,  vol.  vi,  no.  3,  pp.  225-259, 
Boston,  1916),  has  given  the  only  satisfactory  account  of  the  Havell  family 
and  the  best  analysis  of  the  work  of  the  great  engraver. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  383 

as  his  biographer  remarks,  display  all  the  charm  found 
in  the  work  of  his  distinguished  cousin,  William  Havell. 
These  won  immediate  recognition  in  London,  where  he 
received  commissions  from  various  publishers,  includ- 
ing the  house  of  Messrs.  Colnaghi  &  Company. 

Robert  Havell,  Senior,  then  in  his  fifty-eighth  year, 
though  deeply  interested  in  Audubon's  adventurous 
plans,  felt  himself  too  old  to  embark  on  so  extended  a 
work,  which  it  was  then  believed  would  require  from 
fourteen  to  sixteen  years  for  completion;  he  volun- 
teered, however,  to  do  his  best  to  find  a  substitute. 
With  this  in  view,  he  applied  to  Mr.  Colnaghi,  the  pub- 
lisher, and  was  immediately  shown  the  unsigned  proof 
of  a  beautiful  landscape,  exquisitely  drawn  and  en- 
graved by  one  of  the  youthful  retainers  of  his  estab- 
lishment. The  elder  Havell,  after  scrutinizing  it  care- 
fully, exclaimed,  "That's  just  the  man  for  me!" 
"Then,"  replied  the  publisher,  "send  for  your  own  son!" 
Through  this  singular  coincidence,  father  and  son  be- 
came reconciled  and  a  partnership  between  them  was 
soon  announced. 

As  a  test  of  young  HavelFs  skill,  to  follow  the 
story  of  his  biographer,  Audubon  gave  him  his  drawing 
of  the  Prothonotary  Warbler,  which  had  already  been 
engraved  and  issued  by  Lizars  as  Plate  iii  of  The  Birds 
of  America  earlier  in  that  year.  Havell  finished  the 
engraving  in  two  weeks,  when  a  proof  was  struck  and 
the  naturalist  summoned.  Audubon  examined  the 
print  with  the  utmost  keenness  and  deliberation;  then 
he  seized  the  sheet,  and  holding  it  up,  danced  about 
the  room,  calling  out  in  his  French  accent:  "Ze  jig  is 
up,  ze  jig  is  up!"  The  Havells,  who  at  first  thought 
this  might  signify  disapproval,  were  quickly  disabused 
when  Audubon  approached  young  Robert  and,  throw- 


384      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ing  his  arms  about  his  neck,  assured  him  that  his  long- 
sought  engraver  had  been  found  at  last.  Having  given 
this  story,  I  wish  it  were  possible  to  confirm  it,  but  a 
close  examination  of  this  plate  proves  either  that  the 
story  is  a  fiction,  or  that  some  other  drawing  was  used 
as  a  test  of  Havell's  skill.5 

The  part  which  this  interesting  family  played  in 
Audubon's  success  will  be  unfolded  later.6  Suffice  it 
now  to  say  that  Messrs.  Robert  Havell  &  Son,  in  Lon- 
don, undertook  afresh  the  production  of  The  Birds  of 
America  in  the  summer  of  1827.  The  partnership  was 
divided  or  dissolved  in  1828,  when  Robert,  junior,  who 
from  the  first  did  all  of  the  engraving,  took  entire 
charge  of  that  part  of  the  business,  and  moved  his  en- 
graving establishment  around  the  corner  to  77  Oxford 
Street;  there  it  remained  until  broken  up  in  1838.  Rob- 
ert Havell,  Senior,  continued  in  charge  of  the  printing 
and  coloring  until  1830,  when  he  seems  to  have  per- 
manently retired,  two  years  before  his  death  in  1832, 
events  which,  as  will  be  seen,  are  indirectly  registered 
in  the  legends  of  some  of  Audubon's  plates.7 

BMr.  Charles  E.  Goodspeed,  who  recently  sent  me  two  of  the  original 
plates  of  the  Prothonotary  Warbler,  one  bearing  the  legend  "Engraved  by 
W.  H.  Lizars  Edinr,"  and  the  other,  "Engraved,  Printed  &  Coloured,  by 
R.  Havell  Junr,"  called  attention  to  the  identity  of  the  two  engravings. 
That  these  two  impressions  are  absolutely  identical  in  aquatint  and  line  is 
proved  by  applying  a  magnifying  glass  to  any  part  of  their  surfaces,  and 
by  counting  and  comparing  the  lines  or  dots  within  any  selected  area  what- 
soever; in  short,  they  differ  only  in  their  legends,  and  in  the  coloring  which 
was  applied  by  different  hands.  That  such  methods  should  have  been 
adopted  for  excluding  Lizars'  name  is  certainly  surprising.  In  the  first  or 
Edinburgh  impression  of  Lizars'  original  plate,  the  artist's  legend  reads: 
"Drawn  by  J.  J.  Audubon  M.  W.  S.,"  and  names  of  bird  and  plant  appear 
at  the  bottom  of  the  plate  in  three  lines:  "PROTHONOTARY  WARBLER. 
Dacnis  protonotarius.  Plant  Vulgo  Cane  Vine."  In  the  London  edition  the 
corresponding  designations  are:  "Drawn  from  nature  by  J.  J.  Audubon 
F,  R,  S.  F,  L,  S.,"  and  PROTHONOTARY  WARBLER.  Sylvia  Protono- 
tarius. Lath,  Male.  1.  Female,  2.  Cane  Vine.,"  in  four  lines. 

8  See  Chapter  XXXII. 

7  See  ibid. 


X 

ii   ~   ^ 


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3   H   g 

-    2    U) 

.1  -  = 


s  - 

<  u 

sis 


\\ 

is 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  385 

Under  the  younger  Havell's  guiding  hand,  Audu- 
bon  found  that  his  illustrations  could  be  produced  in 
better  style,  more  expeditiously,  and  at  far  less  cost 
than  in  Edinburgh.  When  Lizars  was  later  shown  the 
third  number  which  the  Havells  had  produced,  he  called 
his  assistants  and  observed  how  completely  the  London 
workmen  had  beaten  them;  he  even  offered  to  resume 
work  on  the  engraving  and  at  Havell's  price,  but  Audu- 
bon  was  averse  to  further  experimenting.  "If  he  can 
fall,"  said  he,  "twenty-seven  pounds  in  the  engraving 
of  each  number,  and  do  them  in  a  superior  style  to  his 
previous  work,  how  enormous  must  his  profits  have 
been ;  a  good  lesson  to  me  in  the  time  to  come,  though  I 
must  remember  Havell  is  more  reasonable  owing  to 
what  has  passed  between  us  in  our  business  arrange- 
ments, and  the  fact  that  he  owes  so  much  to  me." 

This  characteristic  note  was  sent  from  Liverpool, 
December  6,  1827,  to  his  agent,  Daniel  Lizars,  father 
to  W.  H.  Lizars,  at  Edinburgh: 

I  will  not  ask  if  you  have  any  new  name  for  me,  as  I  might 
be  disappointed  were  I  to  expect  an  affirmative  answer. 

If  you  see  Sir  Wm.  Jardine  tell  him  that  Charles  Bonaparte 
has  left  the  U.  S.  for  ever,  and  has  gone  to  reside  in  Florence, 
Italy. 

I  have  wrote  to  Mr.  Havell  to  send  you  a  No.  5,  which  I 
wish  you  to  send  to  Professor  Wilson,  or  indeed  a  whole  set,  to 
enable  him  to  write  the  notice  he  has  promised  for  me  the  1st. 
of  next  month. 

Audubon  sent  another  letter  to  this  agent,  from 
London,  January  21,  1828,  when  he  was  still  waiting 
for  an  answer  to  his  last:  "When  I  write  to  any  one  I 
expect  an  answer,  but  when  I  write  to  a  man  I  esteem, 
and  to  whom  I  entrust  a  portion  of  my  business,  I  feel 


ENGRAVINGS. 

IN  submitting  this  List  of  Publications,  R.  HA VELL  begs  (o  state,  be  has  on  Sale 
a  very  extensive  and  well  selected  Assortment  of  ENGRAVINGS  and  WORKS  OF 
ART,  arranged  in  Portfolios,  with  (he  Prices  affixed,  comprising  subjects  after 
"Wilkie,  Turner.  Martin,  Lawrance,  Newtoo,  Burnett,  and  others.  Lithographs, 
Studies  of  Animals,  Figures  and  Heads,  &c.  &c. 


Birds  of  America,  by  J.  J.  Aadubon,  vol. 

1  and  2. 
Ornitholozical  Biography,  by  J.  J.  Auda- 

bon,vof.land2. 
Antiquities  of  Mexico,  by  Lord.  Visconnt. 

Kinzsboroagb. 

Hexandrian  Plants,  by  Mrs.  E.  Bury. 
African  Animals  and  Scenery,  by  Daniels. 
Birds  of  Paradise,  by  F.  Le  Vaillaint. 
Floral  Illnstrations  of  the  Seasons,  by  Mrs. 


E.  Roscoe. 


Views  in  tiro  Ionian  Islands,  by  J. 

Cattwright. . 
Court  of  Persia, 
Albanian  and  Creek  Costumes. 
Aeronautical  View  of  London. 
Ditto  ditto  of  Paris. 

Panoramic  View  of  King  George's 

Sound. 

Panoramic  View.of  Corfu. 
Foreign  Costumes. 
All  Works  on  Natural  History. 


R.  H.  begs  to  observe  that  all  Works  entrusted  to  his  care  for  Publication,  are 
Engraved,  Printed  and  Coloured,  under  Iris  entire  inspection,  on  his  Establishment, 
by  which  means  they  «r6  not  made  public  until  ready  for  delivery. 


Superfine  g&atrv  <£oiours, 

In  Cakes  or  Boxes. 


R.  HA»ELL  begs  tp  recommend  his  .SUPERFINE  WATER  COLOURS,  as  being 
prepared  with  the  greatest  care,  and  solicits  a  Trial. 

In  Mahogany  Boxes,  18  cakes,  lock,  palettes,  marble  slab,  drawer,  &c.  1  JO    6 

Ditto  ditto,  12  cakes    110 

Ditto  ditto,  12  cakes,  without  drawer  .....; „.  0  18    0 

Ditto  ditto,  12  cakes, lock  arid  drawer 0-15    0 

Ditto  ditto,  12  cakes,  without  diuo  0  15    0 

Dittc  ditto,  18  cakes,  sliding  top  „.' 015    0 

Ditto  ditto,  12  cakes.        ditto v..,, 0  10    6 

Ditto  ditto,   6  cakes,        ditto  ,...* t 0    6  '0 

Cumberland  Black  Lead  Drawing  Pencils. 

CAMEL  HAIR   AND  SABLE   BRUSHES. 

Whatman's  Superfine  smooth  rolled  Drawing  Paper,  sold  in  sheets,  quires  or 

reams. 
BRISTOL  BOARDS  OF  ALL  COLOURS  AND  THICKNESS. 

Pennine  3!nofan  3!nk. 

English  and  French  CRAYON  PAPER  of  afl  Colours.     Ditto   ditto  CHALKS. 

REVERSE    OF    PANELS    OF    ROBERT    HAVELI/S    ADVERTISING    FOLDER    REPRODUCED    ON 

FACING   INSERT 


386 


ZOOLOGZCAI* 


Black  Lead   R-ncils.  ^^^^ 

#)  ~HNGRAYEK 


m  the  Highest  Perfect 
G 


JlAVJGUi,     77' 


Book  Binding. 


ItAVELU    77   OXK>R«    STRJE.KT 

Importer    n£  and  Iknfrr  in 
BHIT19H    &FOREI&>.    R  I  BDS.  IK  SE  C  TS  *c  , 


Oval   *   St|M.»rv   !•  ' 


OUl'SIDE    i:\dH. \VKI)   PAXKI.S   OF   AX    ADVERTISING.    FOLDER    ISSUED   BY    ROBERT    IIAVELL, 

ABOUT    1834;    THE    PRINTING    ON    THE    REVERSE    IS    REPRODUCED 

ON    THE     FACING     PAGE. 


From  the  only  copy  known  to  exist,  in  possession  of  Mr.  Ruthven  Deane. 
is  a  strip  of  heavy  paper,   IS  l>y  :?•"••;  inches  in  size,  printed  on  both 
sides,  and   folded   twice,  the  folded  size  being  4%   by  3% 
inches.     One  side  bears   the   four  panels,  engraved 
by  Robert  Havell,  reproduced  on  thi^  and 
the  following  page;  and  the  reverse, 
the  printed  matter  reproduced 
on   p:iire.  SSfi   and  387.      . 


It 


IXSIDE  EKGRAVED  PANELS  OF  THE   ADVERTISING   FOT-DER   ISSUED   BY   ROBERT   ITAVET/T, 

ABOUT    1834. 

The  lower  panel  shows  the  interior  of  the  "Zoological  Gallery,"  77  Oxford 
Street.     Audubon's  plate  of  the  Cock  Turkey  is  being- 
examined   at   one  of  the  tables. 


R.  HAVCLL  begs  to  inform  Zoological  Collectors  that,  having  an  extensive 
correspondence,  he  is  enabled  to  supply  Natural  Productions  from  all  parts  of 
the  Globe. 


Birds  and  Beasts  Stuffed  and  Preserved 

In  the  highest  perfection,  at  his  Establishment,  and  the  greatest  cnre  taken  to 
place  the  specimens  in  their  natural  attitudes  and  pursuits. 

A  GOOD  ASSORTMENT  OF  INSECTS,  BOTH  BRITISH  AND  FOREIGN. 
A  great  variety  of  Coloured  and  Black  Eyes. 

TAXIDURMIE,  or  the  Art  of  Collecting  &  Preparing  Objects  of  Natnral  Historj. 
Maple,  Gold  and  Black  Cases, 

F1TTED-XJP  IN  A  SUPERIOR  STYLE,  WITH  COLOURED  SKY. 
GLASS  SHADES,  OVAL,  ROUND  AND  SQUARE,  OF  ALL  SIZES. 


The  present  Collection  consists  of  the  most  rare  LAND  and  WATER  BIRDS  from 
NORTH  AMERICA,  &c. 


PICTURES  AND  PRINTS 

Framed  and  Glazed,  in  Gold,  Maple,  and  all  kinds  of  Ornamental  and  Fancy 
Woods,  Straining,  Varnishing,  &c, 

DRAWINGS  AND  PRINTS  LENT  OUT  TO  COPY 

ON  THE  FOLLOWING  TERMS  : 

Yearly  Subscription    3*    3    Q* 

Half-yearly  ditto 1    11    6 

Quarterly  ditto 0    16    0 

WeekJyditta ,         .026 


A   GREAT   VARIETY  OP  RICE  DRAWINGS,  AND  RICE  PAPER  OP  AM,  SIZES. 
Plain  and  Ornamental  Albums. 
Ditto  ditto  Scrap  Books. 

Ditto  ditto  Blotting  Cases. 

Ditto  ditto  ditto,  with*  lock  and  key. 

M  I  N  I  AT  0  R  E  .  F  R A  M  E  S      AND     GLASSES. 

Sketch  Books  of  all  sizes. 


ORDERS  FOR  EXPORTATION  executed  with  promptitude,  and  on  (be  lowest 
terms,  at  77V  OXFORD  STREET. 

REVERSE    OP    PANELS    OF    ROBERT    HAVELI/S    ADVERTISING    FOLDER    REPRODUCED    ON 

FACING   INSERT 


387 


388       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

miserable  until  I  hear  from  him.  ...  I  am  extremely 
anxious  to  close  my  business  for  1827,  and  cannot  do  so 
without  receiving  your  a/c,  and  the  money  due  by  my 
subscribers." 

The  summer  of  1827  was  probably  Audubon's  most 
critical  period  in  England.  His  work  was  then  in  the 
air  and  ruin  of  all  his  hopes  seemed  inevitable,  but  with 
palette  and  brush  he  again  extricated  himself  from 
financial  difficulties.  At  this  time,  he  said,  "I  painted 
all  day,  and  sold  my  work  during  the  dusky  hours  of 
the  evening  as  I  walked  through  the  Strand  and  other 
streets  where  the  Jews  reigned;  popping  in  and  out  of 
Jew-shops  or  any  others,  and  never  refusing  the  offer 
made  me  for  the  pictures  I  carried  fresh  from  the 
easel."  He  sold  seven  copies  of  the  "Entrapped  Otter" 
in  London,  Manchester,  and  Liverpool,  and  from  seven 
to  ten  copies  of  some  of  his  other  favorite  subjects;  once 
when  he  inadvertently  called  at  a  shop  where  he  had 
just  disposed  of  a  picture,  the  dealer  promptly  bought 
the  duplicate  and  at  the  same  price  that  he  had  paid 
for  the  first. 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year,  when  it  was  found  that 
his  agents  were  neglecting  their  business,  Audubon 
determined  to  make  a  sortie  to  collect  his  dues  and 
further  augment  his  subscription  list.  He  left  London 
on  September  16,  and  visited  in  succession  Manchester, 
Leeds,  York,  Newcastle-on-Tyne,  Alnwick  Castle  and 
Belford,  to  see  the  Selbys,  finally  reaching  Edinburgh 
on  the  22nd  of  October. 

Audubon  had  set  his  mark  at  obtaining  200  sub- 
scribers by  May,  1828,  but  he  fell  far  short  of  realizing 
it.  On  August  9  he  wrote:  "This  day  seventy  sets 
have  been  distributed ;  yet  the  number  of  my  subscribers 
has  not  increased;  on  the  contrary,  I  have  lost  some." 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  389 

At  York  he  found  that  a  number  of  his  Birds,  which  had 
been  forwarded  from  Edinburgh  before  he  had  taken 
his  departure,  "was  miserably  poor,  scarcely  colored 
at  all";  and  a  copy  of  his  first  number  which  was  later 
examined  at  the  Radcliffe  Library  in  Oxford  was  so 
unsatisfactory  that  he  rolled  it  up  and  took  it  away,  with 
the  reflection  that  Lizars,  whom  he  had  paid  "so  amply 
and  so  punctually,"  could  have  made  him  a  better  re- 
turn. The  colorists  gave  no  end  of  trouble,  but  he 
never  hesitated  to  reject  their  work  when  it  did  not 
meet  his  requirements,  and  the  defective  plates  were 
invariably  sent  back  to  Havell's  shop  to  be  washed,  hot- 
pressed,  and  done  over  again.  To  such  watchful  care 
must  be  ascribed,  in  large  measure,  the  high  degree  of 
perfection  which  his  big  work  eventually  attained. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  upwards  of  one  hundred 
thousand  of  his  large  plates  had  to  be  colored  labori- 
ously by  hand,  and  that  at  one  time  fifty  persons  were 
engaged  at  the  Havell  establishment,  we  can  understand 
the  difficulties  involved  in  maintaining  a  uniform  stand- 
ard of  excellence  in  a  work  that  was  issued  piecemeal  and 
spread  over  a  long  period  of  time. 

In  August,  1827,  Audubon  wrote  to  Mrs.  Thomas 
Sully  of  Philadelphia  to  announce  the  removal  of  his 
business  to  London.  By  this  change  he  expected  to 
save  "upwards  of  an  hundred  pounds  per  annum,  a 
large  sum,"  as  he  remarked,  "for  a  man  like  me."  His 
third  number  had  then  been  issued,  and  he  expressed 
the  hope  that  all  would  go  smoothly  after  "this  first  year 
of  hard  trials  and  times,"  and  that  he  would  be  able  to 
send  for  his  wife  and  one  of  his  sons  in  the  coming 
autumn  or  winter.  He  was  then  painting  "a  flock  of 
Wild  Turkeys  for  the  king,  who  had  honored  him  with 
his  particular  patronage  and  protection."  When  writ- 


390       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

ing  to  his  young  son,  John  W.  Audubon,  on  the  10th 
of  the  same  month,  he  charged  him  to  devote  two  hours 
daily  to  the  preparation  of  bird  skins,  and  to  send  him 
not  only  the  skins  but  live  birds  and  mussel  shells,  for 
which  he  would  be  duly  paid.  Said  the  father: 

I  would  give  you  500  dollars  per  annum,  were  you  able 
to  make  for  me  such  drawings  as  I  will  want.  I  wish  you  would 
draw  one  bird  only,  on  a  twig,  and  send  it  [to  me]  to  look  at, 
as  soon  as  you  can  after  receiving  this  letter.  ...  I  should 
like  to  have  a  large  box  filled  with  branches  of  the  trees,  cov- 
ered with  mosses  &c.,  such  as  Mama  knows  I  want ;  now  recol- 
lect, all  sorts  of  Birds,  males  and  females,  ugly  or  handsome. 

Audubon  had  come  to  London  with  the  idea  of  hav- 
ing his  work  published  under  the  patronage  of  King 
George  IV ;  in  order  to  gain  a  personal  interview  with 
the  Sovereign  he  had  brought  a  letter  to  Robert  Peel, 
who  was  then  the  Home  Secretary,  but  a  change  in 
the  Cabinet  had  upset  his  plans  and  the  letter  was  re- 
turned. He  then  applied  to  the  American  Ambassador, 
Mr.  Albert  Gallatin,  who  upon  their  first  meeting  ad- 
dressed him  in  French  and  showed  "the  ease  and  charm 
of  manner  of  a  perfect  gentleman";  but  when  the  ques- 
tion of  an  audience  with  the  King  was  broached,  Gal- 
latin laughed  at  the  idea  as  preposterous.  "The  .king," 
he  declared,  "sees  nobody;  he  has  the  gout,  is  peevish, 
and  spends  his  time  playing  whist  at  a  shilling  a  rubber. 
I  had  to  wait  six  weeks  before  I  was  presented  to  him 
in  my  position  of  ambassador,  and  then  I  merely  saw 
him  six  or  seven  minutes."  When  Audubon  then  sug- 
gested that  the  Duke  of  Northumberland  might  interest 
himself  in  his  behalf,  Gallatin,  who  disliked  the  English 
heartily,  replied:  "I  have  called  hundreds  of  times  on 
like  men  in  England,  and  have  been  assured  that  his 


UNDER  THE  STICIAL  PATJIOKACE 


evrrlUiU 


BIRDS  OF  AMERICA, 

ENQJUTSD  FROM 

DRAWINGS 

MADE  IN 

THE  UNITED  STATES  AND  THEIR  TERRITORIES. 
BY  JOHN  JAMES  AUDI/DON, 

P.  R.  M.  L  ft  C. 

flLtOW  Of  TM«  tlM«  IA»  AMD  MAtnalCAt  kOTIITII*  or  tOSDOM  |   MIMItk  Of  Tit 

LfCKVM  O*  MIW  »O*K.  TUB  MATCkAi.  ni«T"N v  MM  IBTV  or  r*Bi».  T««  art»»«- 
BIAM  HATroju.   RUTOBY  MriBTV  or  «ni»i>r««Mi  iirtwoniBT  MIHM«  0*  TUB 

icorriix  «rA»>MV  or  MI»TI»«.  Krtm-BB  AMD  AWimicTt  M,  »f. 


PUBLISHED  BY  THE  AUTHOR. 

AND  TO  BE  SEEM  AT 

MR  R  HAVELL  S  JUN.  THE  ENGRAVEB, 

77-  OXFORD  STREET.  LONDON. 

MDCC€XXXF. 

TITLE    PAGE    OF    AUDUBON's    PROSPECTUS    OP    "THE    BIRDS    OF    AMERICA"    FOR    1831. 


391 


392       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

grace,  or  lordship,  or  [her]  ladyship  was  not  at  home, 
until  I  have  grown  wiser,  and  stay  at  home  myself,  and 
merely  attend  to  my  political  business,  and  God  knows 
when  I  will  have  done  with  that." 

As  the  American  Ambassador  had  predicted,  King 
George  evinced  no  ardent  desire  to  meet  the  American 
woodsman,  though  he  consented  to  take  the  work  under 
his  patronage  and  to  become  a  subscriber  on  the  usual 
terms;  this  plan,  however,  fell  through,  for  the  King, 
who  was  reported  to  have  taken  his  copy,  failed  to  pay 
for  it.  With  Queen  Adelaide,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
naturalist  was  more  successful,  and  in  his  "Prospectus" 
of  1831  she  was  announced  as  his  special  patron,  with 
her  name  heading  his  list.  Negotiations  to  interest  the 
Queen  were  going  on  when  the  following  note  was  sent 
to  Audubon  by  Sir  J.  W.  Waller,  who  occupied  some 
position  in  the  king's  household  and  was  spoken  of  as 
"oculist  to  his  majesty": 

Sir  J.  W.  Waller  to  Audubon 

Saturday  9  o  clock  [1830]. 

I  have  scarce  an  Instant  as  I  am  going  to  Town  to  break- 
fast with  the  Dk.  of  Gloucester,  but  yr.  Letter  is  urgent  & 
therefore  I  can  only  desire  Mr,  A.  to  send  his  Number  imme- 
diately to  the  Stable  Yard,  directed  to  her  Majesty,  &  the  first 
moment  I  can  see  her,  I  will  speak  on  the  subject,  but  at  this 
Moment  I  will  not  promise  to  mention  it  to  the  King  for  reasons 
I  cannot  put  on  paper. 

Yrs.  ever, 

J.  W.  WALLER 

At  Edinburgh  Audubon  was  alarmed  to  find  that 
subscribers  were  rapidly  deserting  him,  six  having  can- 
celled their  names  without  the  formality  of  giving  rea- 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  393 

sons.  He  hoped  to  supply  their  places  at  Glasgow,  then 
a  rich  city  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  people, 
but  after  a  visit  there  of  four  days  in  November,  1827, 
he  was  obliged  to  return  to  Edinburgh  with  but  one 
new  name  on  his  list. 

On  October  22  he  expressed  the  resolve  for  the  com- 
ing year  "to  positively  keep  a  cash  account"  with  him- 
self and  others,  "a  thing"  he  had  "never  yet  done."  The 
wisdom  of  that  decision  was  apparent  upon  settling  his 
accounts  for  1827  with  both  Lizars  and  Havell,  as  ap- 
pears from  this  note,  written  in  his  journal  on  January 
17,  1828:  "It  is  difficult  work  for  a  man  like  me  to  see 
that  he  is  neither  cheating  nor  cheated.  All  is  paid  for 
1827,  and  I  am  well  ahead  in  funds.  Had  I  made  such 
regular  settlements  all  my  life  I  should  never  have  been 
as  poor  a  man  as  I  have  been ;  but  on  the  other  hand  I 
should  never  have  published  the  "Birds  of  America." 
Again,  for  February  7  we  find  this  record:  "Havell 
brought  me  the  sets  he  owed  me  for  1827,  and  I  paid 
him  in  full.  Either  through  him  or  Mr.  Lizars  I  have 
met  with  a  loss  of  nearly  £100,  for  I  am  charged  with 
fifty  numbers  more  than  can  be  accounted  for  by  my 
agents  or  myself.  This  seems  strange  always  to  me, 
that  people  cannot  be  honest,  but  I  must  bring  myself 
to  believe  many  are  not,  from  my  own  experiences." 

Shortly  after  reaching  London,  as  we  have  seen, 
Audubon  had  made  the  acquaintance  of  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence,  then  at  the  head  of  the  Royal  Academy  and 
favorite  painter  of  the  Court  and  fashionable  society. 
The  friendship  of  this  influential  artist  at  a  critical  mo- 
ment proved  most  fortunate,  for  Sir  Thomas  called 
repeatedly  at  his  lodgings,  and  at  each  visit  brought 
patrons  who  went  away  with  some  of  his  pictures  but 
not  without  leaving  a  handsome  toll  of  sovereigns  in 


394       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

his  lap;  the  "Entrapped  Otter"  again  did  duty  by 
bringing  him  twenty-five  pounds,  while  others  returned 
from  seven  to  thirty-five  pounds.  At  a  later  time  the 
artist  visited  the  "Zoological  Gallery,"  as  the  Havell 
establishment  in  Newman  Street  was  then  known,  and 
saw  Audubon's  large  paintings  called  "The  Eagle  and 
the  Lamb,"  and  "English  Pheasants  Surprised  by  a 
Spanish  Dog"  or  "Sauve  qui  peut!3  Audubon,  who 
on  this  occasion  missed  seeing  his  distinguished  visitor, 
had  written  in  his  journal  three  days  before  (December 
23,  1828)  that  the  paintings  were  what  he  called  "fin- 
ished," but  that,  as  usual,  he  could  not  bear  to  look  at 
either.  Sir  Thomas  praised  the  "Eagle,"  admired  an 
"Otter,"  which  was  later  exhibited  in  London,  but  gave 
no  opinion  on  the  "Pheasants."  Afterwards,  however, 
when  Audubon  proposed  to  present  this  canvas  to  King 
George,  the  artist  assured  him  that  this  picture  was 
worth  300  guineas  and  that  it  was  too  good  to  be  given 
away;  if  offered  to  the  King,  no  doubt,  said  he,  "it 
would  be  accepted  and  placed  in  his  collections,  but  you 
would  receive  no  benefit  from  the  gift."  According  to 
a  later  record,  this  canvas  was  sold  to  Mr.  John  Hep- 
penstall  of  Sheffield;  whether  it  was  ever  delivered,  or 
not,  I  do  not  know,  but  either  the  original  or  a  copy, 
here  reproduced,  now  forms  the  central  figure  in  the 
large  Audubon  collection  in  the  American  Museum  of 
Natural  History  in  New  York,  and  is  an  excellent  illus- 
tration of  the  elaborate  and  ambitious  character  of 
Audubon's  larger  compositions.  These  fortunate  wind- 
falls came  none  too  soon,  for  to  follow  the  journal: 

Mr.  Havell  had  already  called  to  say  that  on  Saturday  I 
must  pay  him  sixty  pounds.  I  was  then  not  only  not  worth  a 
penny,  but  had  actually  borrowed  five  pounds  a  few  days  be- 
fore to  purchase  materials  for  my  pictures.  But  these  pic- 


<  c 

O    H 
Z    r 


i  i\ 


&  2 
<  Z 
K*  o 


I! 


e 


" 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  395 

tures  which  Sir  Thomas  sold  for  me  enabled  me  to  pay  my 
borrowed  money,  and  to  appear  full-handed  when  Mr.  Havell 
called.  Thus  I  passed  the  Rubicon. 

This  was  before  the  reform  of  the  penal  laws  in  Eng- 
land, when  it  seems  to  have  been  hard  for  a  man  to 
escape  hanging,  not  to  speak  of  being  sent  to  prison 
for  debt,  the  chief  terror  of  life  in  certain  circles. 
There  were  223  capital  offenses,  and  in  1829  in  the 
city  of  London  alone  7,114  persons  were  sent  to  the 
debtors'  prison.8 

Without  the  sale  of  his  pictures  in  the  summer  of 
1827,  Audubon  felt  that  he  must  certainly  have  become 
a  bankrupt,  yet  he  was  periodically  displeased  with  the 
results  of  his  efforts  in  oil  colors,  and  resolved  to  "spoil 
no  more  canvas"  but  to  draw  "in  my  usual  old  untaught 
way,  which  is  what  God  meant  me  to  do" ;  "I  can  draw," 
he  continues,  "but  I  shall  never  paint  well."  In  the 
fall  of  1828,  however,  he  was  again  working  in  oils, 
and  produced  four  large  pieces,  one  of  which  was  called 
"The  Eagle  and  the  Lamb,"  and  two  others  which  were 
doubtless  variations  of  his  "Pheasant"  and  "Otter"  pic- 
tures. "It  is  charity,"  said  the  artist,  "to  speak  the 
truth  to  a  man  who  knows  the  poverty  of  his  talents, 
and  wishes  to  improve;  it  is  villainous  to  mislead  him, 
by  praising  him  to  his  face,  and  laughing  at  his  work 
as  they  go  down  the  stairs  of  his  house."  Sir  Thomas 
Lawrence  had  praised  some  of  these  pictures  and  had 
promised  to  select  one  for  exhibition  at  Somerset  House. 
As  regards  "The  Eagle  and  the  Lamb,"  which  Audu- 
bon hoped  would  go  to  Windsor  Castle,  William 
Swainson  would  give  no  opinion;  the  same  canvas,  or 

•See  Sir  Walter  Besant,  London  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  (London, 
1909). 


396       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

else  a  replica,  was  in  possession  of  the  Audubon  family 
in  1898.9 

On  December  14,  1827,  Audubon  wrote  that,  acting 
upon  the  advice  of  Mr.  Maury,  the  American  consul 
at  London,  he  had  presented  a  copy  of  his  Birds  to 
John  Quincy  Adams,  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  another,  through  Henry  Clay,  to  the  Ameri- 
can Congress;  in  order  that  the  latter  should  be  as 
perfect  as  possible,  Havell  was  asked  to  do  the  color- 
ing himself,  but  these  proposed  gifts  do  not  appear  to 
have  been  executed.10 

New  Year's,  1828,  found  the  naturalist  in  Man- 
chester, where  but  a  few  days  before  he  had  received 
the  fifth  and  last  number  of  his  plates  for  1827  and 
expressed  himself  well  pleased  with  it.  While  return- 
ing to  London  by  coach,  he  consented  to  take  a  hand 
at  cards  to  accommodate  his  fellow  passengers,  but 
declined  to  play  for  money;  "I  never  play,"  he  con- 
fessed, "unless  obliged  to  by  circumstances;  I  feel  no 
pleasure  in  the  game,  and  long  for  other  occupation." 
"I  missed  my  snuff,"  he  added,  and  whenever  his  hands 
went  into  his  pockets  in  search  of  the  box,  he  "discov- 
ered the  strength  of  habit  thus  acting  without  thought"; 
but  he  remembered  a  resolution  he  had  formed  to  give 
up  the  habit  and  stuck  to  it  for  a  time  at  least;  doubt- 
less, like  his  later  friend,  John  Bachman,  he  reformed 
more  than  once,  for  in  a  letter  to  Victor  Audubon,  of 
November  5,  1846,  Bachman  added  this  postscript: 
"To  Audubon :  The  snuff — the  snuff,  it  is  here !  I  have 
just  taken  a  pinch,  and  the  ladies  have  blown  you  up- 
sky-high,  for  teaching  me  such  a  bad  practice;  I  say, 


•See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals   (Bibl.  No.  86), 
vol.  i,  p.  342,  where  the  "Eagle  and  the  Lamb"  is  reproduced. 
10  See  Vol.  I,  p.  436. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  397 

however,  that  you  beat  me  all  to  pieces  in  that  art." 
The  first  winter  in  London  dragged  heavily  for  the 
naturalist,  who  exclaimed  in  January,  1828:  "How 
long  am  I  to  be  confined  in  this  immense  jail";  when 
Daniel  Lizars  reported  from  Edinburgh  the  loss  of  four 
of  his  subscribers,  he  writes,  "I  am  dull  as  a  beetle. 
Why  do  I  dislike  London?  Is  it  because  the  constant 
evidence  of  the  contrast  between  the  rich  and  the  poor 
is  a  constant  torment  to  me,  or  is  it  because  of  its  size 
and  crowd?  I  know  not,  but  I  long  for  sights  and 
sounds  of  a  different  nature,"  such,  we  might  add,  as 
the  flocks  of  wild  duck  which  were  occasionally  seen 
from  Regent's  Park  as  they  passed  over  the  city  and 
made  him  more  homesick  than  ever.  Audubon 
hated  the  city  quite  as  cordially  as  Charles  Lamb  ever 
affected  to  detest  the  country,  and  when  leaving  it? 
afoot  or  by  stage,  it  seemed  as  if  he  could  never  be 
rid  of  it.  "What  a  place  is  London,"  he  would  say,  but 
naively  add:  "many  persons  live  there  solely  because 
they  like  it." 

On  February  4, 1828,  Audubon  was  elected  to  mem- 
bership in  the  Linnsean  Society,  and  in  November  he 
presented  it  with  a  copy  of  his  work,  which  was  then 
well  under  way.  This  was  noticed  in  a  letter  to  Swain- 
son,  written  on  November  7,  when  no  acknowledgment 
of  the  gift  had  then  been  received;  and  he  mentioned 
also  the  sale  of  his  picture  of  "Blue  Jays"  for  ten 
guineas.  At  a  meeting  of  the  Linnaean  Society  not 
long  after  his  election,  copies  of  Selby's  Illustrations  of 
British  Ornithology  and  of  his  own  work  were  placed 
side  by  side  for  inspection,  and  "very  unfair  compari- 
sons were  drawn  between  the  two";  had  Selby,  Audu- 
bon reflected,  been  given  "the  same  opportunities  that 
my  curious  life  has  granted  me,  his  work  would  have 


398       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

been  far  superior  to  mine";  "I  supported  him,"  he 
added,  "to  the  best  of  my  power." 

Revision  of  his  older  drawings  demanded  much  of 
Audubon's  attention  during  these  years.  On  February 
10,  1828,  he  began  the  Whiteheaded  Eagle  (No.  7, 
Plate  xxxi) ,  the  original  of  which  had  been  procured  on 
the  Mississippi,  where  the  bird  was  represented  as  din- 
ing on  a  wild  goose;  now,  he  said,  "I  shall  make  it 
breakfast  on  a  catfish,  the  drawing  of  which  is  also  with 
me,  with  the  marks  of  the  talons  of  another  eagle,  which 
I  disturbed  on  the  banks  of  the  same  river,  driving  him 
from  his  prey."  On  the  16th  of  that  month  he  was 
engaged  with  this  drawing  from  seven  in  the  morning 
until  half  after  four,  stopping  only  to  take  the  glass  of 
milk  which  his  landlady  would  bring  to  him.  This  plate 
was  engraved  in  the  following  April,  and  on  May  1, 
1828,  a  first  proof  was  sent  to  the  Marquis  of  Lands- 
do  wne,  president  of  the  Zoological  Society,  as  a  mark 
of  appreciation  by  its  author,  who  had  become  a  member 
of  that  body  in  the  preceding  winter. 

A  striking  characteristic  of  Audubon's  work  was  its 
diversity,  produced  not  only  by  attractive  embellish- 
ments of  many  kinds,  but  by  the  moving  force  and 
action  with  which  he  ever  sought  to  vitalize  his  sub- 
jects. It  is  therefore  not  surprising  that  he  was  nettled 
by  an  incident  like  this : 

February  28.  To-day  I  called  by  appointment  on  the  Earl 
of  Kinnoul,  a  small  man,  with  a  face  like  the  caricature  of  an 
owl;  he  said  he  had  sent  for  me  to  tell  me  all  my  birds  were 
alike,  and  he  considered  my  work  a  swindle.  He  may  really 
think  this;  his  knowledge  is  probably  small;  but  it  is  not  the 
custom  to  send  for  a  gentleman  to  abuse  him  in  one's  house.  I 
heard  his  words,  bowed,  and  without  speaking,  left  the  rudest 
man  I  have  met  in  this  land. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  399 

Audubon  had  not  yet  visited  the  great  university 
towns  of  England,  the  support  of  which  he  knew  would 
be  a  valuable  asset,  and  on  March  3,  1828,  he  set  out 
by  stage  for  Cambridge.  His  driver,  he  remarked, 
"held  confidances  with  every  grog-shop  between  Lon- 
don and  Cambridge,  and  his  purple  face  gave  powerful 
evidences  that  malt  liquor  [was]  more  enticing  to  him 
than  water."  His  reception  at  Cambridge  was  hearty; 
he  was  entertained  by  Professors  Sedgwick,  Whewell, 
and  Henslow,  dined  repeatedly  "in  Hall"  with  the  dons, 
and  received  the  subscription  of  the  librarian  of  the 
University.  It  is  interesting  to  recall  that  young 
Charles  Darwin,  "the  man  who  walks  with  Henslow," 
as  some  of  the  dons  called  him,  was  then  an  undergrad- 
uate at  King's  College,  and  that  thirty-one  years  were 
to  pass  before  modern  biology  was  born  in  1859,  the 
year  of  the  appearance  of  the  epoch-making  Origin  of 
Species. 

By  the  15th  of  March  Audubon  was  again  in  Lon- 
don, and  on  the  24th  he  started  for  Oxford.  Dr. 
Williams,  as  he  noted  in  his  journal,  subscribed  for  his 
Birds  in  favor  of  the  Radcliffe  Library,  as  did  also  Dr. 
Kidd  for  the  Anatomical  School;  but,  though  hospita- 
bly treated  by  all,  not  one  of  the  twenty-four  colleges 
of  that  great  University  emulated  their  example,  and 
the  naturalist  went  away  disappointed. 

Upon  his  return  to  London  in  early  April,  Audubon 
received  a  call  from  John  C.  Loudon,  editor  of  the 
Magazine  of  Natural  History,  and  was  invited  to  con- 
tribute to  that  journal.  "I  declined,"  he  said,  "for  I 
will  never  write  anything  to  call  down  upon  me  a  second 
volley  of  abuse.  I  can  only  write  facts,  and  when  I 
write  these,  the  Philadelphians  call  me  a  liar."  He  was 
then  chafing  under  the  criticism  which  his  rattlesnake 


400       AUDUBOlSr,  THE  NATURALIST 

stories  had  produced.11  On  April  6  the  persistent  Mr. 
London  called  again  and  offered  Audubon  eight 
guineas  for  an  article,  only  to  be  again  refused.  Still 
unwilling  to  admit  defeat,  the  editor  proposed  to  en- 
gage William  Swainson  to  prepare  an  extended  review 
of  the  naturalist's  work,  and  in  this  he  succeeded  so  well 
that  Audubon  immediately  relented  and  sent  him  a 
paper.12  Swainson  offered  to  write  the  review  for  a 
copy  of  the  work  at  its  cost  price,  and  Audubon  replied 
in  the  following  letter: 


13 


Audubon  to  William  Swainson 

LONDON,  April  9th  1828. 
My  DEAR  SIR, 

Mr.  Loudon  called  on  me  yesterday  and  showed  me  a  letter 
from  you  to  him,  in  which  many  very  flattering  expressions  re- 
specting myself  and  my  works  you  are  so  kind  as  to  offer  to 

11  See  Chapter  XXVIII. 

"  The  seventh  which  he  had  contributed  to  the  scientific  press  of 
Europe,  entitled  "Notes  on  the  Bird  of  Washington  (Falco  Washing- 
toniana),  or  Great  Sea  Eagle,"  now  believed  to  have  been  mistaken  by 
him  for  an  immature  stage  of  the  true  "bird  of  freedom,"  the  White- 
headed  Eagle.  It  was  dated  "London,  April,  1828,"  and  was  published 
in  Loudon's  Magazine  for  July  of  that  year.  See  Bibliography,  No.  23. 

13  From  the  originals  in  possession  of  the  Linnaean  Society  of  London. 
Swainson's  scientific  correspondence  was  taken  with  him  to  New  Zealand, 
where  it  remained  fifty  years,  until  returned  by  his  daughter,  who  sent 
it  to  Sir  Joseph  Hooker;  it  was  finally  purchased  by  a  number  of  Fellows 
of  the  Society,  and  presented  to  its  historical  collections.  It  consists  of 
934  letters  written  by  236  correspondents,  from  1806  to  1840.  Of  the 
24  letters  written  by  Audubon,  and  dated  9  April,  1829,  to  11  January, 
1838,  none  has  been  previously  published.  Dr.  Albert  Giinther,  who  has 
given  a  summary  of  their  contents  (Proceedings  of  the  Linncean  Society, 
112th  Session,  1900;  Bibliography,  No.  204)  found  them  rather  disappoint- 
ing, since  they  dealt  mainly  with  personal  and  domestic  matters,  and 
were  written  in  a  style  characterized  as  "fantastic  and  unnatural." 
Through  the  kindness  of  my  esteemed  friend,  George  E.  Bullen,  Esq., 
of  the  Hertfordshire  County  Museum,  St.  Albans,  and  through  the 
courtesy  of  the  Council  of  the  Linnaean  Society  and  its  secretary,  Dr. 
Day  don  Jackson,  I  am  able  to  reproduce  transcripts  of  the  most  inter- 
esting of  these  letters,  which  readers  in  America  will,  I  believe,  find 
interesting  because  of  their  personal  details.  I  am  indebted  also  for 
their  good  offices  to  John  Hopkinson,  F.L.S.,  and  to  William  Rowan,  Esq. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  401 

review  the  latter  so  as  to  have  your  opinion  in  writting  in  time 
for  the  first  no.  of  the  magazine  that  will  appear  next  month. — 
you  also  desire  that  I  should  send  you  a  sett  of  the  works  as  far 
as  publishing  which  you  wish  to  keep  provided  I  will  let  you 
have  it  at  the  price  it  costs  me.  I  assure  you  my  Dear  Sir,  that 
was  I  to  take  you  at  your  word  it  would  be  a  sore  bargain  for 
you  as  the  a/m  would  be  very  nearly  double  that  for  which  it 
is  sold  to  my  subscribers. — therefore  you  will  permit  me  to 
alter  your  offer  and  to  say  that  if  it  suits  you  to  pay  35 
shillings  per  number  I  will  be  contented ;  I  would  be  still  more 
so  was  I  rich  enough  to  present  it  to  you. — 

It  is  the  only  set  on  hand  at  present  except  one  which  I 
must  have  to  exhibit. — 

The  answer  respecting  the  Shrieke  [Shrike]  has  I  hope  met 
with  your  wishes. — 

Ever  since  I  became  acquainted  with  our  mutual  friend  Dr. 
Fraill  [Traill]  I  have  had  a  great  desire  to  see  and  speak  to 
you  &  I  regret  that  I  never  have  had  an  opportunity.  My  time 
is  so  completely  taken  up  that  it  is  with  difficulty  that  I  can 
enjoy  a  day's  rest — Should  you  come  to  town  pray  call  on  me 
when  I  may  have  the  pleasure  of  shaking  your  hand  and  to  as- 
sure you  verbally  that  I  am  truly  and  sincerely 

yours  obe  st 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON 
95  Great  Russell  St. 

Bedford  Sq. 


Thus  began  an  intimate  friendship  between  William 
Swainson  and  John  James  Audubon  which  lasted  until 
1830,  and  their  intercourse  did  not  wholly  cease  before 

From  the  context  of  the  nine  letters  which  are  here  reproduced  with- 
out change,  it  is  evident  that  Audubon  paid  little  attention  to  grammar, 
syntax,  or  orthography,  but  if  the  reader  will  compare  the  letters  written 
before  and  after  1830,  or  before  and  after  his  first  serious  discipline  in 
English  composition  (see  Chapters  XXIII  and  XXIX),  he  will  find  marked 
improvement  in  all  these  respects. 


402       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 


n<2«*t-e^7 


•2?  rt&^f     at+t+^C 


LETTER  OF  WILLIAM  SWAINSON  TO  AUDUBON,  MAY,   1828. 

From  the  Deane  MSS. 

1838.  In  his  use  of  English  at  this  time  Audubon 
was  not  far  behind  Swainson,  whose  mother  tongue  it 
was.  Swainson,  according  to  Dr.  Giinther,  was  "ex- 
tremely careless  in  orthography  and  loose  in  his  style 
of  writing:  he  persistently  misspelt  not  only  technical 
terms,  but  also  the  names  of  foreign  authors,  and  even 
of  some  of  his  familiar  friends  and  correspondents;  he 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  403 

knew  no  other  language  but  his  own,  and  the  applica- 
tion of  Latin  and  Greek  for  the  purpose  of  systematic 
nomenclature  was  a  constant  source  of  error." 

At  this  time  Swainson  was  living  in  semi-retirement 
at  a  farmstead  of  considerable  size,  called  "Highfield 
Hall,"  14  near  Tyttenhanger  Green,  a  small  settlement, 
off  the  highroad,  two  miles  southeast  of  the  historic 
town  of  St.  Albans,  in  Hertfordshire ;  though  his  letters 
were  always  dated  from  "The  Green"  at  Tyttenhanger, 
his  associations  were  with  the  more  considerable  village 
of  London  Colney,  but  a  mile  to  the  south,  on  the  road 
to  Barnet.  Audubon  had  brought  a  letter  of  intro- 
duction from  Dr.  Traill,  a  valiant  champion  of  Swain- 
son  at  Edinburgh,  but  was  unable  to  go  to  the  country 
to  deliver  it.  Swainson,  however,  attended  promptly 
to  the  review,  and  on  April  11,  1828,  sent  it  to  Mr. 
Loudon,  who  published  it  in  the  May  number  of  his 
Magazine.15 

Swainson's  review  was  extremely  laudatory,  and 
Audubon  reproduced  extracts  from  it  in  later  editions 
of  his  "Prospectus."  To  quote  a  characteristic  para- 
graph, he  said  that  the  naturalist's  ornithological  papers 

14  Swainson's  house  has  been  kindly  identified  by  my  friend,  Mr.  George 
E.  Bullen,  to  whom  I  am  indebted  also  for  an  interesting  photograph, 
taken  from  an  old  print.  Mrs.  Swainson,  who  died  February  12,  1835, 
was  buried  in  the  parish  church,  with  which  she  was  closely  identified, 
at  London  Colney,  and  a  tablet  to  her  memory  is  still  to  be  seen  there. 
Swainson  probably  preferred  the  historic  associations  of  Tyttenhanger,  a 
name  originally  applied  to  the  manor  and  manor  house  of  the  Abbot  of 
St.  Albans,  a  famous  abbey  property  acquired  before  the  Conquest,  with 
a  history  extending  over  six  hundred  years,  but  he  did  not  live  there. 
The  oldest  resident  now  on  the  spot,  a  man  over  ninety,  told  Mr.  Bullen 
that  as  a  boy  he  often  collected  butterflies,  moths  and  other  specimens 
of  natural  history  which  he  took  to  "Highfield  Hall,"  and  was  always 
paid  by  one  of  the  Swainson  children.  Since  Swainson's  time  the  original 
house,  which  was  approached  by  a  long  walk,  has  become  almost  un- 
recognizable, having  received  an  addition  to  one  side;  the  grass  land  which 
then  surrounded  it  has  been  converted  into  beautiful  lawns. 

"See  Bibliography,  No.  95. 


404      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

printed  in  one  of  the  Scotch  journals,  are  as  valuable  to  the 
scientific  world,  as  they  are  delightful  to  the  general  reader. 
They  give  us  a  rich  foretaste  of  what  we  may  hope  and  expect 
from  such  a  man.  There  is  a  freshness  and  an  originality 
about  these  essays,  which  can  only  be  compared  to  the  animated 
biographies  of  Wilson.  .  .  .  To  represent  the  passions  and  the 
feelings  of  birds,  might,  until  now,  have  been  well  deemed  chi- 
merical. Rarely,  indeed,  do  we  see  their  outward  forms  repre- 
sented with  any  thing  like  nature.  In  my  estimation,  not  more 
than  three  painters  ever  lived  who  could  draw  a  bird.  Of  these 
the  lamented  Barrabaud  [Barraband],  of  whom  France  may 
be  justly  proud,  was  the  chief.  He  has  long  passed  away;  but 
his  mantle  has  at  length  been  recovered  in  the  forests  of 
America. 

Audubon  spent  four  days  with  Swainson  and  his 
family  at  Tyttenhanger,  from  May  28  to  June  1,  1828, 
when  they  talked  birds  and  made  drawings;  Audubon 
also  showed  Swainson  "how  to  put  up  birds  in  his  style, 
which  delighted  him."  The  friendship  between  these 
men,  though  very  intimate  while  it  lasted,  received  a 
sudden  check  two  years  later,  when  Audubon  was  about 
to  publish  the  letterpress  to  his  plates,  as  will  be  related 
farther  on.16 

Though  his  hands  were  already  more  than  full  at 
this  time,  Audubon  seems  to  have  played  with  the  idea 
of  publishing  a  work  on  the  birds  of  Great  Britain,  but 
on  May  1  he  wrote  to  Swainson  that  the  plan  did  not 
meet  with  favor,  and  later  he  relinquished  all  claims  in 
such  a  project  to  his  assistant,  William  MacGillivray.17 

In  the  spring  of  1828  Audubon  began  to  think  of 
returning  to  the  United  States,  to  renew  or  revise  his 
drawings  and  extend  his  researches.  "I  am  sure,"  he 

"See  Chapter  XXIX. 
"  See  Vol.  II,  p.  130. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  405 

said,  "that  now  I  could  make  better  compositions,  and 
select  better  plants  than  when  I  drew  mainly  for  amuse- 
ment." In  order  to  raise  the  necessary  funds,  he  re- 
sorted again  to  picture  painting,  his  never  failing  re- 
source, and  worked  in  oil  colors  daily  from  morning  light 
until  dusk,  unless  called  to  Havell's  to  decide  some  ques- 
tion of  necessary  detail.  The  following  letters  to 
Swainson  shed  further  light  on  this  work  and  on  the 
progress  of  The  Birds  of  America,  the  eighth  number  of 
which  was  published  early  in  July : 

Audubon  to  William  Swainson 

LONDON,  July  1st   1828. 
MY  DEAR  SIR. — 

I  have  been  expecting  to  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  for 
upwards  of  a  week,  having  mentioned  in  your  last  note  that 
you  intended  spending  a  couple  of  days  in  London  before  the 
end  of  June. — When  are  you  coming? — the  beautifull  lamb 
came  quite  safe  and  is  now  on  the  canvas  (in  efigy)  for  ages  to 
come — I  bought  a  superb  Golden  Eagle  from  Mr.  Cross  that 

also  has  helped  to  fill  it [Here  apparently  some  words 

have  been  deleted,  and  it  is  impossible  to  read  them.]  I  long 
to  shew  them  to  you. — I  have  finished  the  picture  of  the  Tur- 
keys, and  painted  a  white  headed  eagle — in  fact  I  have  worked 
from  4  every  morning  untill  dark — but  the  best  news  I  have 
to  tell  is ;  that  I  have  received  4  letters  from  my  wife,  one  dated 
2nd  of  May,  all  well — but  not  quite  settled  about  coming  before 
the  end  of  summer.  I  have  changed  quarters  and  am  now  at 
79  Newman  Street  Oxford  Street,  in  Mr.  Havell's  house  where 
I  have  taken  3  rooms  and  feel  more  comfortable  although  I 
have  not  the  little  piece  of  ground  to  walk  on. — I  imagine  the 
country  to  be  now  quite  beautifull  and  had  I  time  to  spare 
would  walk  out  to  see  you  Mrs  S  &  the  dear  little  folks  at 
Tittenhanger  Green. — I  received  a  visit  on  Saturday  last  of 
the  whole  of  Lord  Milton's  family  who  after  complimenting  the 
author  of  the  "Birds  of  America"  very  kindly  subscribed  for 


406       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

two  copies  of  the  work. — I  have  mended  my  pen — I  should  have 
sent  the  Blackwood  magazine  to  you,  but  I  so  much  expected 
to  see  you  here  that  it  is  yet  on  my  table,  and  will  keep  it  untill 
you  come. — All  my  exertions  to  procure  live  grouses  have  been 
abortive  here — I  have  written  to  Scotland  to  a  friend  and  per- 
haps will  have  some  soon. — The  8th  number  is  now  printing  and 
colouring  and  will  be  out  this  month — the  9th  is  began. — If  you 
are  hungry  or  thirsty  when  you  come  to  town  please  make  for 
my  [here  a  word  is  omitted],  and  I  will  try  to  manage  matters 
in  this  way. — May  I  ask  what  you  are  doing? — I  saw  Dr 
FrailFs  [Traill's]  son  a  few  days  ago — he  inquired  after  your 
son  and  family. — I  expect  a  copy  of  Loudon's  magazine  this 
evening.  I  feel  anxious  to  see  what  sort  of  a  cut  the  Doves 
make,  as  well  as  the  birds  of  Washington. — 

With  sincerest  regards  &  esteem  to  yourself  and  Lady — 
I  am  yours  most  truly 

r  JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 

79  Newman  Street, 

Oxford  Street. 

Audubon  to  William  Swains  on 

LONDON  Thursday  July  1828. 
MY  DEAR  MR  SWAINSON, 

Although  your  last  note  said  that  you  knew  not  when  I 
should  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  in  town,  I  have  hoped 
every  morning  to  see  you  that  day. — When  will  you  come? — 
There  is  a  talk  of  my  picture  of  the  Eagle  and  the  Lamb  going 
to  her  Majesty,  Sir  Walter  Waller  has  been  written  to  on  the 
subject  and  every  thing  is  in  train  to  lead  poor  I  like  a  lamb  to 
Windsor  Castle ! — I  am  told  the  picture  is  a  grand  one  but  you, 
my  dear  Sir,  have  not  said  so !  When  you  come  I  will  show  you 
13  grouses  pretty  fairly  grouped  on  one  canvas,  with  seven 
pheasants  with  a  Fox  on  another,  etc.  etc.  I  have  worked  hard 
this  month  from  4  p.m.  untill  7  a.m.  [sic]  every  day — I  re- 
gretted that  your  brother  did  not  come  to  see  me — I  have  a 
great  desire  to  see  you  but  I  cannot  at  present  leave  town. — 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  407 

My  8th  No.  is  just  out. — The  9th  &  10th  are  engraving. — I 
have  sent  word  to  my  son  to  land  [?]  &  bring  some  skins  for 
you  &  perhaps  you  may  have  a  rare  assortment  bye  and  bye. — 
I  hope  your  Lady  and  dear  Children  are  all  quite  well  Pray  re- 
member me  kindly  to  them. 1  wish  to  name  a  bird  after 

you  in  the  1st  No.  of  1829  &  wish  you  to  choose  a  name. 
Believe  yours  ever  and  truly  obliged 

J.  J.  AUDUBON 
79  Newman  Street, 
Oxford  Street. 


By  the  9th  of  August  eight  pictures  had  been  be- 
gun, but  none  was  finished,  and  the  number  of  his  sub- 
scribers had  fallen  to  seventy.  At  about  this  time  Cap- 
tain Basil  Hall18  returned  from  his  journey  through 
the  United  States,  and  brought  direct  news  from  Victor 
Audubon,  who  was  then  at  Louisville,  from  Dr.  Richard 
Harlan  and  Thomas  Sully,  to  all  of  whom  the  natural- 
ist's letters  had  been  delivered  the  previous  year. 
Towards  the  end  of  the  month  Audubon  received  the 
following  note  from  the  secretary  of  the  Zoological  So- 
ciety, N.  A.  Vigors,  who  was  also  anxious  to  obtain 
from  him  an  article  for  his  Journal: 

N.  A.  Vigors  to  Audubon 

BRUTER  Or 

Aug.  23,  1828. 

MY  DEAR  SIR: — 

I  hope  you  do  not  forget  your  promise  of  giving  us  a 
paper  for  the  Zoological  Journal.  We  should  be  much  grati- 
fied by  having  your  name  with  us :  and,  if  possible,  should  wish 
to  have  whatever  you  may  favour  us  with  within  the  next  ten 
days.  I  have  been  but  a  few  hours  in  town,  and  shall  leave 
town  again  tomorrow  for  a  few  days,  or  I  should  have  called 

18  See  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  364. 


408       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

upon  you  to  speak  personally  upon  the  subject.  I  believe  I 
have  already  mentioned,  that  we  are  in  the  habit  of  remu- 
nerating those  of  our  correspondents  who  wish  for  payment  for 
their  labours,  at  a  rate  not  exceeding  £10.10.0  per  sheet. 

A  letter  from  you  in  answer  will  reach  me,  if  sent  to  Bruter 
Ct :  before  Wednesday  on  which  day  a  parcel  will  be  forwarded 
to  me  from  thence. 

Believe  me  my  dear  Sir, 

Yours  faithfully, 

N:  A:  VIGORS. 

[Addressed] 
J.  J.  AUDUBON  Esq., 
69  Great  Russell  St. ; 
Bloomsbury. 

[Readdressed] 
Newman  Street, 

Oxford  Street 

Audubon  refused  this  request,  saying  that  "no 
money  can  pay  for  abuse,"  and  this  time  he  did  not 
retract. 

Without  immediate  prospect  of  seeing  his  family, 
for  neither  Mrs.  Audubon  nor  her  sons  were  enthusiastic 
over  the  proposal  that  they  should  go  to  England,  the 
naturalist  was  momentarily  depressed;  he  turned  to 
Swainson  for  advice,  at  the  same  time  suggesting  that 
they  visit  Paris  together.  Audubon  wrote  in  his  journal 
for  August  16,  1828,  that  he  had  invited  Swainson  to 
accompany  him  to  France,  whither  his  friend  had  ex- 
pressed a  desire  to  go  when  the  subject  had  been 
broached  at  Tyttenhanger ;  on  the  25th  of  that  month 
he  added:  "I  do  not  expect  much  benefit  by  this  trip, 
but  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  what  may  be  done."  The 
letter  just  referred  to  follows: 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  409 

Audubon  to  William  Swainson 

LONDON,  Wednesday  Augt.  13,  1828. 
MY  DEAR  MR.  SWAINSON, 

I  reached  my  lodging  in  great  comfort  by  the  side  of  your 
amiable  Docr  Davie  two  hours  and  a  half  after  we  shook  hands 
— I  wish  I  might  say  as  much  of  my  Journey  through  Life. — I 
have  had  sad  news  from  my  dear  wife  this  morning,  she  has  posi- 
tively abandoned  her  coming  to  England  for  some  indefinite 
time,  indeed  she  says  that  she  looks  anxiously  for  the  day  when 
tired  myself  of  this  country  I  will  return  to  mine  and  live  al- 
though a  humbler  (Public)  Life,  a  much  happier  one — her 
letter  has  not  raised  my  already  despondent  spirits  in  some- 
things and  at  the  very  instant  I  am  writing  to  you  it  may  per- 
haps be  well  that  no  instrument  is  at  hand  with  which  a  woeful 
,sin  might  be  committed — I  have  laid  aside  brushes,  thoughts  of 
painting  and  all  except  the  ties  of  friendship — I  am  miserable 
just  now  and  you  must  excuse  so  unpleasant  a  letter — Would 
you  go  to  Paris  with  me?  I  could  go  with  you  any  day  that 
you  would  be  please  to  mention,  I  will  remain  there  as  long  and 
no  longer  than  may  suit  your  callings — I  will  go  with  you  to 
Rome  or  anywhere,  where  something  may  be  done  for  either  of 
our  advantage  and  to  drive  off  my  very  great  uncomfortable- 
ness  of  thoughts — My  two  sons  are  also  very  much  against  com- 
ing to  England,  a  land  they  say  where  neither  freedom  or  sim- 
plicity of  habits  exist  and  altogether  uncongenial  to  their  mode 
of  life. — What  am  I  to  do  ?  As  a  man  of  the  World  and  a  man 
possessed  of  strong  unprejudiced  understanding  I  wish  that  you 
would  advise  me. — But  now  on  your  account  I  will  change  the 
subject — I  called  on  Newman  two  days  ago  &  to  the  following 
enquiries  he  gave  me  yesterday  the  following  answers 
What  the  price  of 

3/>  doz  best  Pure  Lake  dowards  [?]        answer       12/ — 

3/o    «      «    Carmin-  "  "  20/— 

1/2    "      "    UltraMarine  "  "  84/~ 

%    «      "    Vermillion  "  "  6/— 

l/2    "      "    Terra  di  Verona  "  "  4/— 


410      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

As  I  thought  the  above  prices  enormous  I  have  declined  advising 
chalks  for  you  &  will  await  your  advent. — 

Should  you  not  feel  inclined  to  go  to  France  at  present 
which  by  the  bye  is  the  very  best  season  on  account  of  seeing 
the  vintage  etc.  etc. — please  write  to  me  so  or  come  to  town 
which  would  be  still  more  agreeable  &  talk  the  matter  over  as 
I  think  I  would  persuade  you  to  absent  yourself  for  a  month 
or  so — I  hope  your  kind  lady  continues  quite  well  &  your  Dear 
Little  ones — 

Believe  me  yours  most  "sincerely 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 
Please  write  by  return  of  Post — 
79  Newman  Street 
Oxford  Street. 

On  this  journey  to  Paris  Audubon  was  accompanied 
by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Swainson  and  an  American  artist, 
named  Parker,  who  had  been  at  work  on  a  portrait  of 
the  naturalist  in  oils.  For  Audubon  it  was  mainly  a 
canvassing  tour ;  Parker  hoped  to  obtain  orders  for  por- 
traits, and  Swainson,  new  ornithological  material  at  the 
great  museum  in  the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  for  a  work 
upon  which  he  was  then  engaged.19 

The  party  set  out  on  the  1st  of  September,  travel- 
ing by  way  of  Dover  and  Boulogne,  and  reached  Paris 
on  Thursday,  September  4.  They  alighted  at  the  Mes- 
sagerie  Royale,  Rue  des  Victoires,  and,  after  looking 
up  lodgings,  went  at  once  to  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  to 
pay  their  respects  to  Cuvier.  The  Museum  of  Natural 
History  was  closed,  but  they  knocked  and  asked  for  the 
Baron.  "He  was  in,"  said  Audubon,  in  the  journal  of 
his  Paris  experience, 

18  Fauna  Boreali-Americana;  or  the  Zoology  of  the  northern  parts  of 
British  America;  Part  Second,  "The  Birds;"  by  William  Swainson  and 
John  Richardson  (London,  1831). 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  411 

but,  we  were  told,  too  busy  to  be  seen.  Being  determined  to 
look  at  the  great  man,  we  waited,  knocked  again,  and  with  a 
certain  degree  of  firmness  sent  in  our  names.  The  messenger 
returned,  bowed,  and  led  the  way  up  stairs,  where  in  a  minute 
Monsieur  the  Baron,  like  an  excellent  good  man,  came  to  us; 
he  had  heard  of  my  friend  Swainson  and  greeted  him  as  he 
deserves  to  be  greeted ;  he  was  polite  and  kind  to  me,  though 
my  name  had  never  made  its  way  to  his  ears.  I  looked  at  him, 
and  here  follows  the  result :  age  about  sixty-five ;  size  corpulent, 
five  feet  five,  English  measure;  head  large;  face  wrinkled  and 
brownish;  eyes  gray,  brilliant  and  sparkling;  nose  aquiline, 
large  and  red ;  mouth  large,  with  good  lips ;  teeth  few,  blunted 
by  age,  excepting  one  on  the  lower  jaw,  measuring  nearly 
three-quarters  of  an  inch  square.20 

They  were  immediately  invited  to  dine  on  the  follow- 
ing Saturday  at  six  o'clock,  and  later  saw  Cuvier  at  his 
home,  at  his  Museum,  and  at  the  Academy  of  Sciences, 
over  which  he  presided. 

Geoffroy  Saint-Hilaire  pleased  Audubon  greatly 
and  proved  to  him  by  his  conversation  that  he  under- 
stood perfectly  the  difference  between  the  French  and 
the  English.  The  Duke  of  Orleans,  who  then  occupied 
the  Palais  Royal,  seemed  to  him  the  finest  physical  type 
of  man  he  had  ever  met.  "He  had  my  book  brought 
up,"  said  the  naturalist,  "and  helped  me  untie  the  strings 
and  arrange  the  table,  and  began  by  saying  that  he  felt 
great  pleasure  in  subscribing  to  the  work  of  an  Ameri- 
can, for  he  had  been  most  kindly  received  in  the  United 
States  and  should  never  forget  it."  When  the  plate  of 
the  Baltimore  Orioles  was  held  up  to  view,  the  Duke 
exclaimed:  "This  surpasses  all  I  have  seen,  and  I  am 
not  astonished  now  at  the  eulogiums  of  M.  Redoute." 
He  conversed  in  both  English  and  French,  had  much 

30  Maria  R.  Audubon,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  306. 


412       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

to  say  of  American  cities  and  rivers,  and  added:  "You 
are  a  great  nation,  a  wonderful  nation."  The  Duke 
wrote  his  name  in  Audubon's  subscription  book,  prom- 
ised to  try  to  enlist  a  number  of  the  crowned  heads  of 
Europe  in  his  behalf,  and  gave  him  besides  a  number 
of  orders  for  pictures  of  animals. 

Audubon  had  already  made  friends  with  the  veteran 
painter  of  flowers,  Pierre  Joseph  Redoute,  and  when 
it  was  proposed  that  they  should  exchange  works,  the 
"Raphael  of  Flowers"  consented,  gave  Audubon  at  once 
nine  numbers  of  his  Belles  Fleurs,  and  promised  to  send 
"Lea  Roses" 

During  this  visit  of  eight  weeks  Parker  painted  por- 
traits of  both  Cuvier  and  Redoute;  Swainson  worked 
steadily  at  the  Museum,  where  Isidore  Geoffrey  Saint- 
Hilaire  gave  him  the  use  of  his  private  study;  while 
Audubon,  for  the  most  part,  was  driving  from  post  to 
pillar  in  his  not  altogether  successful  efforts  to  extend 
his  subscription  list.  As  already  intimated,  his  greatest 
success  in  Paris  was  in  winning  the  friendship  and  en- 
dorsement of  Cuvier,  who  reported  upon  his  work  at  a 
meeting  of  the  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  held  on 
September  22.21  Audubon  has  related  how  on  this  occa- 
sion he  had  an  appointment  to  meet  the  Baron  in  the 
library  of  the  Institute  at  precisely  half  past  one 
o'clock;  he  waited;  the  hall  filled,  and  the  clock  ticked 
on,  but  the  great  savant  did  not  appear.  Finally,  said 
Audubon,  after  an  hour  had  passed,  "all  at  once  I  heard 
his  voice,  and  saw  him  advancing,  very  warm  and  ap- 
parently fatigued.  He  met  me  with  many  apologies, 
and  said,  'Come  with  me';  and  as  we  walked  along,  he 
explaining  all  the  time  why  he  had  been  late,  while  his 
hand  drove  a  pencil  with  great  rapidity,  and  he  told  me 

21  See  Vol.  I,  p.  3. 


AUDUBON 

AFTER    A    PORTRAIT    IX     OILS,     HITHERTO    UXPUKLISHEI),    PAIXTKI1    ABOUT    1836 
W.     II.     IIOLMKS    FOR    WALTER    HORTOX    HEXTLEY,    OF    MANCHESTER,    AXD    IX 

IN    I'OSSESSIOX   OF   HIS  GRAXDSOX,  JOHX    COXWAY  BEXTLEY,  FOR- 

MEKI.Y  OF  GLASGOW.      IX  THE  ORIGIXAL  AUDUBOX  IS  REPRESEXTKI) 

IN    A    GREEX    COAT,   A   CRIMSOX    CLOAK    WITH    DEEP    FUR    EIXilNC. 

THROWX    OVER    OXE    SHOULDKH,    AM)    WITH    PORTFOLIO    IX 

HAXD.        FROM     A    PI  IOTOCH  Al>  1 1      IV     I'OSSESSIOX     OF 

MB.     RUTH  VEX     DEAXE. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  413 

that  he  was  actually  now  writing  the  report  on  my 
work?"  22  Cuvier's  published  report,  which  was  ex- 
tremely laudatory,  showed  little  signs  of  haste.  After 
speaking  of  Audubon's  talents  and  accomplishments  he 
said: 

The  execution  of  these  plates,  so  remarkable  for  their  size, 
seems  to  us  equally  successful  in  the  drawing,  the  engraving, 
and  coloring,  and  though  it  may  be  difficult  to  represent  relief 
in  a  colored  print  with  as  much  effect  as  in  painting  proper, 
this  is  no  disadvantage  in  works  on  natural  history  ;  natural- 
ists prefer  the  true  color  of  objects  to  those  accidental  shades 
which  result  from  the  diverse  inflections  of  light;  necessary 
though  these  be  for  completing  the  truth  of  a  picture,  they  are 
foreign  as  well  as  prejudicial  to  scientific  accuracy.23 

By  November  Audubon  was  once  more  in  London, 
busy  at  painting  to  fill  his  orders  and  his  purse.  On 
the  llth  of  the  month,  we  find  Swainson,  whose  own 
exchequer  was  empty,  writing  to  Audubon  for  a  loan; 
this  letter,  and  one  soon  to  follow,  illustrate  some  of  the 
characteristics  to  which  we  have  referred: 

William  Swainson  to  Audubon 

Tuesday  11  Nov.  1828. 

I  had  written  the  enclosed,  my  dear  Mr.  Audubon,  before 
»your  letter  of  Monday  reached  me.  It  has  come  this  instant, 
Dreams,  you  know,  must  always  be  interpreted  contrawise,  we 
might  have  lifted  up  our  arms,  as  you  saw  in  your  dream  but, 
if  you  had  not  awoke,  it  was  no  doubt  to  have  shaken  hands  ! 
But  that  my  regard  for  you  may  be  evinced,  I  will  bring  myself 
to  lay  under  an  obligation,  which  I  would  only  ask  for  one  of 
my  own  family.  I  was  that  moment  thinking  to  which  I  should 


M  Maria  R.  Audubon,  op.  cit.,  vol.  i,  p.  323. 
"See  Bibliography,  No.  93a. 


414       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

write,  to  ask  the  loan  of  80  £  for  a  few  months,  and  now  I 
will  ask  it  of  you.  If  you  was  aware  of  the  peculiar  feelings 
which  we  Englishmen  have  on  such  occasions,  perhaps  you 
would  smile,  but  so  it  is  that  we  never  ask  any  one,  from  whom 
we  have  the  least  idea  of  a  refusal.  Now,  did  I  not  believe 
you  to  be  a  sincere  friend,  do  you  imagine  I  should  have  told 
you  I  was  in  want  of  Money  much  less  have  asked  you  to  lend 
me  some.  The  fact  is,  I  have  suffered  a  severe  loss  during  my 
being  in  Paris,  what  little  I  had  on  hand  has  been  spent  there 
and  in  making  preparations  for  the  publication  of  my  Zool. 
Illustrations.  Two  or  three  months  however,  hard  work  will 
bring  me  round  again  &  repay  you. 

Let  me  see  your  letter  to  the  President  of  the  Zool.  Soc. 
before  it  goes,  and  you  shall  see  mine. 

I  shall  be  most  thankful  for  the  Grouse.  I  send  2  draw- 
ings to  Havell  to  be  engraved  spur  him  on  for  I  want  to  have 
every  thing  ready  before  the  new  year. 

Yours  most  sincerely, 

W.  SWAINSON. 
JOHN  J.  AUDUBON,  Esq. 

79  Newman  St. 

In  December  the  Swainsons  invited  Audubon  to 
dine  with  them  at  Christmas;  in  his  letter  Swainson 
said: 

Why  are  you  so  sad?  I  would  lay  ten  shillings  that  old 
Havell  has  been  disappointing  you  as  he  has  done  me.  He  is 
in  matters  of  business  a  complete  daudle — an  old  woman,  and 
I  have  done  with  him.  His  son  I  think  better  of  he  has  a  good 
idea  of  punctuality  in  business.  ...  In  one  of  your  walks  I 
hope  you  have  thought  about  the  French  Wme  that  we  talked 
so  much  about  and  have  ascertained  the  particulars  from  your 
friend,  so  that  we  may  order  a  cask.  I  hope  you  have  not  mis- 
taken the  price, — for  if  not,  nothing  that  can  be  drank  in  this 
country  is  one  half  as  cheap. 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  415 

In  the  following  letter  Swainson  refers  to  the  second 
series  of  his  Zoological  Illustrations,24  the  sale  of  which 
was  irritating  him,  and  to  N.  A.  Vigors,  with  whom  he 
had  entered  upon  a  notorious  controversy  in  1828: 

William  Swainson  to  Audubon 

18  January,  1829. 

MY  DEAR  MR.  AUDUBON, 

I  write  this  in  utter  uncertainty  whether  it  will  find  you  in 
London.  My  first  number  has  now  been  out  three  weeks — it 
has  been  seen  and  universally  admired,  and  how  many  copies 
do  you  think  the  Publisher  has  sold?  now  pray  guess  as  the 
Americans  say.  100 — no.  twentyfive,  no.  fifteen,  no.  ten?  yes. 
positively  ten  copies  and  no  more,  has  been  sold.  I  blush  almost 
to  confess  this  mortification  to  even,  you,  but  so  it  is.  Now, 
my  dear  Sir,  what  am  I  to  think  of  the  "generally  diffused 
taste,"  as  the  phrase  is,  for  Natural  History. 

This  allthough  vexing  to  me,  may  be  a  consolation  to  you, 
who  are  able  to  exhibit  on  what  I  call  your  Red  Book  the  names 
of  a  good  portion  of  150  subscribers  to  a  200  guinea  Book. 
Think  yourself  my  friend  exceedingly  well  off. 

The  amount  of  sale  must  be  kept  silent,  it  would  be  a  nice 
nut  to  crack  for  V  [igors].  &  his  friends. 

I  shall  be  able  to  do  without  the  water  birds,  if  you  have 
not  found  any. 

I  have  had  a  most  extraordinary  letter  from  Waterton, 
which  will  highly  amuse  you.  The  man  is  mad — stark,  staring 
mad. 

Yours  very  faith'ly 

W.  SWAINSON. 

Can  you  tell  me  any  safe  expeditions  made  of  sending  and 
receiving  letters  and  Parcels  from  Philadelphia. 
J.  J.  AUDUBON  Esq. 

79  Newman  St. 
Oxford  St. 

"The  three  volumes  of  this  series  bear  date  of  1832-33,  but  the 
preface  is  inscribed  "Tittenhanger  Green  St.  Albans,  24  th  July,  1829." 


416       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Early  in  1829  Bonaparte  wrote  from  Rome,  where 
he  had  then  settled,  and  the  following  letter  shows  that 
he  had  then  heard  of  Audubon's  visit  to  France,  and 
was  keenly  interested  in  his  success: 

Charles  L.  Bonaparte  to  Audubon 

ROME  January  10  th  1829. 

DEAR  SIR 

I  received  in  due  time  your  favours  of  November  3d.  &  De- 
cember 21  st.  &  now  come  to  thank  you  for  them,  wishing  you 
or  rather  expressing  to  you  at  the  occasion  of  the  renewal  of 
the  year,  the  warm  wishes  I  constantly  have  for  your  health, 
happiness  &  especially  for  the  success  of  your  work.  From  the 
contents  of  your  letter  I  clearly  perceive  that  one  at  least  of 
my  letters  to  you  must  have  miscarried.  Nothing  could  be 
more  interesting  to  me  than  the  narrative  of  your  journey  to 
France,  though  I  had  heard  from  other  quarters  the  good  & 
well  deserved  reception  you  met  with.  Your  letter  of  August 
20  th.  never  came  at  hand,  &  it  must  have  been  the  same  with 
at  least  one  of  mine  to  you.  What  you  mention  about  Tem- 
minck  quite  astonishes  me!  ...  I  thought  he  would  have  un- 
dertaken even  a  journey  to  see  you  &  your  drawings !  !  !  Please 
let  me  know  when  you  write  whether  the  Ornithological  Illus- 
trations of  Jardine,  Vigors  &  Co  are  stopped  or  still  going 
on. — The  animals  I  spoke  to  you  of  were  reported  as  deliv- 
ered to  you  by  Mr  Gray  of  the  British  Museum  who  had  re- 
ceived them  for  me  from  the  U.  States.  Is  it  not  so?  .  .  . 
Corvus  Cornix  with  us  is  very  fond  of  the  sea  shore  &  feeds 
occasionally  on  fish,  but  I  never  observed  it  had  the  singular 
habits  of  C.  ossifragus  at  least  as  described  by  Wilson. 

I  am  surprized  at  Messrs  J  B's  conduct ;  I  have  always 
found  them  extremely  kind  and  well  disposed  towards  me ;  & 
although  we  have  settled  our  accounts  I  had  no  reason  to  be- 
lieve they  would  refuse  our  box.  However  we  can  do  without 
their  interference  quite  as  well,  &  I  hope  you  have  already  for- 
warded the  box  to  Leghorn  recommending  it  to  the  care  of  my 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON 


417 


*T         C   Pv  *+',*+*  S /•*{**  /3t»x>f  i-» 

pii  J  v**ye#lj&  *~"*  ^^  '*^-  \& 


PART  OF  LETTER  OF  CHARLES  LUCIEN  BONAPARTE  4*0  AUDUBOH>  JANUARY  10,  1829. 

From  the  Rowland  MSS. 


agent  in  that  port.  Messrs  F.  &  A.  Filuchs.(  ?)  I  shall  keep  a 
good  lookout  for  it  being  extremely  anxious  to  see  your  new 
number.  I  should  never  have  done  if  I  was  [to]  repeat  [to] 
you  all  the  praise  given  to  your  work  by  our  Italian  artists  & 
men  of  science!  ...  I  shall  merely  state  that  on  my  part  I 
prefer  the  plate  of  Goldfinches  to  any  other,  birds  and  plants, 
being  life  itself;  &  that  I  am  most  anxious  to  see  Astur  Stan- 
leyi  which  I  strongly  suspect  to  be  my  Falco  Cooperii.  .  .  . 
By  this  time,  however  you  may  have  been  able  to  ascertain  the 
fact  .  .  .  please  let  me  know  how  the  thing  stands.  It  is  only 


418       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

by  your  letter  that  I  hear  of  my  work  (&  d)  being  in  London: 
I  have  not  yet  seen  a  copy  myself  nor  did  I  know  positively  that 
it  had  been  published.  You  must  surely  have  received  one 
from  myself  at  all  events,  for  I  directed  Messrs  Gay  &  Lea  to 
let  you  have  one  of  the  very  first  out.  Let  me  know  whether 
you  have  it  &  your  opinion  about  it. — I  think  you  are  right  in 
going  to  Russia,  especially  as  in  giving  them  the  American 
Birds  you  will  probably  give  us  the  Russians,  some  of  which 
are  hardly  known.  Try  to  get  for  me  Pyrrhula  longicauda,  P. 
rosea  &  Scalopax — thalina,  the  latter  especially.  I  shall  not 
loose  sight  of  the  portrait,  but  it  will  be  still  more  difficult  to  get 
the  signature.  I  will  however  endeavor  from  some  of  my  rela- 
tions. You  were  right  in  supposing  me  "dans  les  bras  de  la 
paix  &  le  bonheur  d'un  heureux  pere  de  f  amille"  but  greatly  mis- 
taken to  think  I  was  taking  "le  plaisir  des  sciences".  Settling 
and  other  cursed  worldly  affairs  have  so  much  taken  up  my 
time,  that  I  have  not  looked  a  specimen  or  a  book  since  I  am 
in  Rome  .  .  .  my  small  library  itself  &  my  Cabinet  have  not 
even  been  arranged  &  I  tremble  to  find  all  my  birds  destroyed 
when  the  happy  day  will  come  to  look  into  them.  In  the  mean 
time  an  addition  has  been  made  six  weeks  ago  to  my  small  fam- 
ily. I  have  another  son  who  has  received  the  names  of  Lucien 
Louis  Joseph  Napoleon  &  better  than  that  who  is  the  porthrait 
of  health  itself.  I  am  sure  you  will  divide  my  happiness  & 
excuse  my  delay  in  answering  you  principally  on  that  account. 
I  am  in  debt  with  half  the  scientific  world  &  this  has  been  the 
first  letter  I  scratched  since  I  am  in  Rome!  ...  I  hope  to  be 
more  regular  &  less  in  a  hurry  in  future  .  .  .  though  God 
knows!  ...  I  will  not  however  close  this  letter  without  men- 
tionaing  the  pleasure  I  had  the  other  day  in  getting  you  a 
new  subscriber  &  that  among  the  English  themselves. !  The 
Earl  of  Shrewsbury  &  his  good  Lady  highly  admired  your  work 
the  other  day  at  my  house  &  were  so  pleased  with  it  that  they 
said  they  would  write  immediately  to  add  their  name  to  the  list. 
The  Earl  of  Shrewsbury  is  as  you  know  the  first  Earl  of  Great 
Britain  a  catholic  &  what  is  more  to  you  a  man  of  great  taste. 
His  not  having  heard  of  your  work  shows  that  you  have  not 


AUDUBON  IN  LONDON  419 

made  enough  noise  about  it:  &  I  am  sure  his  name  will  be 
followed  by  a  great  many  others  to  which  Mr.  Chapittar  (Lord 
Shrewsb.  friend)  has  promised  me  to  show  the  work  &  deliver 
the  prospectuses.  Did  you  hear  of  the  death  of  poor  Mr 
Barnes  killed  by  a  stag  (  ?).  It  is  a  great  loss  for  the  Queen. 
I  remain,  Dear  Sir,  begging  you  the  London  news 
your  most  obliged  friend 

CHARLES  L.  BONAPAETE. 
[Addressed]  Mr.  J.  J.  AUDUBON 

79  Newman  Street 
Oxford  St. 

London 

Inghilterra. 
[Endorsed]  Answered  Feby.  8  th.  1829. 

J.  J.  A. 

Audubon  continued  to  work  on  his  paintings  dur- 
ing the  winter  of  1828-9,  hoping  to  put  his  affairs  in 
such  order  that  he  might  be  able  to  start  for  America 
in  the  following  year. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

FIRST  VISIT  TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  NEW  BIRDS 

Audubon  settles  for  a  time  in  Camden — Paints  in  a  fisherman's  cottage 
by  the  sea — With  the  lumbermen  in  the  Great  Pine  Woods — Work 
done — Visits  his  sons — Joins  his  wife  at  St.  Francisville — Record  of 
journey  south — Life  at  "Beechgrove" — Mrs.  Audubon  retires  from 
teaching — Their  plans  to  return  to  England — Meeting  with  President 
Jackson  and  Edward  Everett. 

Audubon  laid  his  plans  to  visit  America  in  1829 
with  unusual  care,  and  was  fortunate  in  being  able  to 
entrust  his  publication  to  the  competent  hands  of  John 
George  Children,  of  the  British  Museum.  This  was 
to  be  actually  his  third  voyage  to  the  United  States, 
but  it  was  the  first  which  he  made  from  English  soil, 
and  after  he  had  become  known  as  an  ornithologist  and 
animal  painter.  He  wished  to  renew  at  least  fifty  of  his 
earlier  drawings  and  to  obtain  new  materials  of  every 
description.  Although  he  was  naturally  anxious  to  see 
his  wife,  from  whom  he  had  been  absent  for  nearly  three 
years,  and  his  boys,  the  elder  of  whom  had  been  left 
at  Shippingport  five  years  before,  he  felt  constrained 
to  devote  to  his  work  every  moment  that  could  be  spared. 

When  writing  to  his  wife  of  his  difficulties  and  pros- 
pects at  this  period,  he  assured  her  that  he  would  act 
cautiously,  with  all  due  diligence  and  sobriety,  and  con- 
tinued: 

Thou  art  quite  comfortable  in  Louisiana,  I  know;  there- 
fore wait  there  with  a  little  patience.  I  hope  the  end  of  this 
year  will  see  me  under  headway  sufficient  to  have  thee  with 

420 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS   421 

me  in  comfort  here,  and  I  need  not  tell  thee  I  long  for  thee 
every  hour  I  am  absent  from  thee.  If  I  fail,  America  will  still 
be  my  country,  and  thou,  I  will  still  feel,  my  friend.  I  will 
return  to  both  and  forget  forever  the  troubles  and  expenses 
I  have  had ;  when  walking  together,  arm  in  arm,  we  can  see 
our  sons  before  us,  and  listen  to  the  mellow  sounding  thrush, 
so  plentiful  in  our  woods  of  magnolia.1 

A  little  later  in  1829  he  also  wrote:  "I  have  finished 
the  two  first  years  of  publication,  the  two  most  difficult 
to  be  encountered."  At  that  time  he  fully  expected 
that  fourteen  years  would  be  required  for  the  comple- 
tion of  his  task,  owing  to  the  many  difficulties  experi- 
enced, especially  in  securing  competent  workmen,  as 
well  as  the  necessity  of  distributing  the  expense  for  the 
benefit  of  his  subscribers. 

When  Havell  had  been  provided  with  all  the  draw- 
ings needed  for  the  remainder  of  the  year  1829  and  the 
first  issue  of  1830,  Audubon  sailed  from  Portsmouth  on 
the  1st  of  April,  1829,  in  the  packet  ship  Columbia, 
which  reached  New  York  on  the  opening  day  of  May. 
"I  chose  the  ship,"  he  said,  "on  account  of  her  name,  and 
paid  thirty  pounds  for  my  passage." 

He  paused  in  New  York  to  exhibit  his  drawings 
at  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  of  which  he  had 
become  a  member  in  1824,  but  soon  hurried  to  Phila- 
delphia, and  finally  settled  down  for  work  at  Camden, 
in  New  Jersey,  later  known  to  fame  as  the  home  of 
"the  good  gray  poet."  There,  at  a  boarding  house  kept 
by  a  Mr.  Armstrong,  he  remained  three  weeks,  from 
about  May  23  to  June  13,  hunting  and  painting  every 
day.  From  Camden  he  went  to  Great  Egg  Harbor, 
then  a  famous  resort  of  both  land  and  water  birds  in 
great  variety,  and  for  three  weeks  more  he  lived  and 

*Mary  F.  Bradford,  Audubon  (Bibl.  No.  85). 


422       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

worked  in  a  fisherman's  cabin  by  the  sea.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  recall  that  Alexander  Wilson,  in  company  with 
George  Ord,  had  spent  a  month  at  this  point  in  the 
spring  of  1813. 

The  following  letter 2  from  Swainson  was  probably 
the  one  to  which  Audubon  replied  from  New  Jersey  on 
September  14: 

William  Swainson  to  Audubon 

MY  DEAR  MR.  AUDUBON 

I  welcomed  the  news  of  your  arrival  in  America  yesterday, 
and  as  I  am  making  up  a  packet  for  Liverpool  today,  I  seize  the 
opportunity  of  wishing  you  joy  and  happiness  in  the  new  world. 
I  am  surprised  and  disappointed  as  not  receiving  one  line 
from  Ward  it  is  at  the  best  negligent,  and  somewhat  ungrate- 
ful. Hope  you  have  begun  your  studies  among  the  birds  on 
a  better  plan  than  formerly,  that  is,  in  preserving  the  skins 
of  every  one  on  which  there  is  the  least  doubt  whether  the 
bird  is  young  or  old,  particularly  the  former.  If  you  are  to 
give  scientific  descriptions  and  definitions  of  the  species 
this  precaution  is  absolutely  necessary.  What  your  Amer- 
icans do  with  their  money  I  know  not,  Mr.  Lea  tells  me 
he  cannot  procure  one  purchaser  for  my  new  Illustrations: 
here  it  is  now  going  on  very  well. 

You  asked  me  what  you  can  do  for  me  in  America.  I  will 
tell  you.  Send  me  a  cart  load  of  shells  from  the  Ohio,  or  from 
any  of  the  Rivers  near  New  Orleans.  The  very  smallest,  as  well 
as  the  very  largest — all  sizes.  I  have  been  long  expecting  those 
which  your  son  promised  you  for  me  near  twelve  months  ago ! 
but  I  have  heard  nothing  of  them!  you  may  spend  a  few  dol- 
lars for  me  and  send  people  to  fish  the  shells  at  the  dry  sea- 
son, when  the  waters  are  low,  that  is  the  best  time. 

Things  go  on  here  much  as  usual,  but  I  have  not  been  in 
London  since  Xmas.     The  first  volume,  containing  the  Quad- 
published  originally  by  Ruthven  Deane   (Bibl.  No.  218),  The  Auk, 
vol.  xxii,  1905. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS   423 

rupeds,  of  Dr.  Richardson's  work,  is  out.  I  am  now  busy  in 
preparing  the  second,  which  contains  the  Birds.  Let  me  par- 
ticularly direct  your  attention  to  the  manners  of  the  Cedar 
Bird,  Ampelis  Americana.  I  suspect  it  feeds  much  on  Insects 
in  default  of  fruit,  but  what  is  desirable,  is  to  know  the  way 
in  which  it  captures  Insects,  whether  as  a  flycatcher  ie.  by 
seizing  them  on  the  wing,  or  like  the  Gold  crest — by  picking 
them  up  among  the  branches  or  leaves.  I  am  now  in  close 
correspondance  with  Charles  Bonaparte,  &  a  most  valuble  cor- 
respondant  he  is. 

Mrs.  Swainson  is  just  recovering  from  her  confinement  af- 
ter giving  me  another  little  son  I  am  happy  today  they  are 
both  going  on  well. 

Wilson  I  believe  mentions  two  birds  very  like  the  Red  eyed 
Flycatcher,  this  is  a  point  'deserving  your  attention,  but  the 
manners  of  these  birds  are  much  more  important.  I  feel  con- 
vinced there  are  several  species  of  my  Genus  Ammodramus 
shore  finch,  in  the  So.  States,  they  all  have  narrow  pointed  tails, 
like  the  seasidefinch  of  Wilson.  I  further  suspect  there  is  more 
than  one  species  confounded  with  the  Towee  Buntling. 

I  hope  soon  again  to  hear  more  fully  from  you,  and  of  your 
ornithological  acquisitions.  The  dear  little  ones  are  quite 
well. 

Yours  very  sincerely, 

WM.  SWAINSON 

THE  GREEK  26  June  1829. 
MR.  JOHN  J.  AUDUBON 
care  of 

Mess.  THOMAS  E.  WALKER  &  Co. 
Merchants. 

New  York  [Philadelphia] 

On  the  4th  of  July  Audubon  returned  to  Phila- 
delphia and  prepared  for  a  longer  sojourn  in  the  Great 
Pine  Forest,  or  Great  Pine  Swamp,  as  it  was  sometimes 
called,  in  Northumberland  County,  Pennsylvania.  In 


424       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

this  letter  to  his  son  we  shall  find  an  account  of  his 
plans  and  accomplishments: 

Audubon  to  his  son,  Victor 

PHILADELPHIA,  July  5  th.}  1829. 
MY  DEAR  VICTOR: — 

I  have  been  in  America  two  months  this  day,  and  not  a 
word  from  you  have  I  had  in  answer  to  my  several  letters,  dated 
New  York,  and  at  this  place.  I  am  also  without  answer  from 
your  Mama,  but  do  not  feel  so  surprised  as  I  know  that  about 
g  months  is  the  time  necessary  to  have  a  return  from  Louisi- 
ana. 

I  have  come  to  take  your  Mama  over  to  England,  if  her 
wish  inclines  her  to  do  so,  and  have  wrote  fully  to  her,  giving 
her  all  the  particulars  respecting  my  situation  that  I  thought 
could  possibly  be  trusted  to  a  letter. 

I  have  also  come  to  America  to  redraw  some  of  my  earliest 
productions,  and  am  now  closely  engaged  at  this.  I  remained 
near  this  city  for  3  weeks,  and  since  have  spent  3  more  at 
Great  Egg  Harbour,  from  which  place  I  returned  yesterday. 
I  have  already  13  drawings  by  me.  I  have  letters  from  Lon- 
don, up  to  30  th.  April,  when  all  my  business  was  going  ^n 
well  with  an  increase  of  4  subscribers.  I  have  no  news  to 
transmit;  on  the  contrary,  I  was  in  hopes  that  ere  this  I 
should  have  had  at  least  one  long  letter  from  you.  I  beg  you 
will  write  me  when  you  last  heard  from  your  Mama.  Direct 
your  letter  to  the  care  of  Messrs  Thos.  E.  Walker,  &  Co,  mer- 
chants here,  who  know  all  my  movements,  and  will  see  anything 
forwarded  to  wherever  I  may  choose  to  go  to. 

I  hope  your  uncle  Berthoud  &  family  are  all  well;  present 
them  my  best  regards,  and  to  all  others  who  may  feel  inter- 
ested in  my  welfare,  and  believe  me 

your  affectionate  father, 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 

I  have  bought  a  good  gold  time-keeper,  intended  for  you, 
and  a  copy  bound,  of  my  work,  and  wish  to  know  how  it  can 
be  forwarded.  God  bless  you. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS   425 

After  outfitting  himself  in  Philadelphia,  Audubon 
proceeded  to  Mauch  Chunk;  his  provisions  for  this  jour- 
ney to  the  forest  consisted  of  a  "wooden  box  containing 
a  small  stock  of  linin,  drawing-paper,  my  journal,  colors 
and  pencils,  together  with  twenty  pounds  of  shot,  sev- 
eral flints,  a  due  quantum  of  cash,  my  gun  'Tear 
Jacket,'  and  a  heart  as  true  to  nature  as  ever."  From 
Mauch  Chunk  he  traveled  fifteen  miles  into  the  heart 
of  the  wooded  hills,  and  was  received  into  the  family 
of  Jedediah  Irish,  lumberman  and  philosopher,  whose 
praise  was  celebrated  in  a  later  "Episode."  3  "What 
pleasure,"  said  the  naturalist,  "I  had  in  listening  to 
him,  as  he  read  his  favourite  poems  of  Burns,  while  my 
pencil  was  occupied  in  smoothing  and  softening  the 
drawing  of  the  bird  before  me.  Was  this  not  enough 
to  recall  to  my  mind  the  early  impressions  that  had  been 
made  upon  it  by  the  description  of  the  golden  age,  which 
I  here  found  realized?" 

During  his  stay  in  the  forest  Audubon  paid  par- 
ticular attention  to  the  smaller  land  birds,  such  as 
finches,  warblers  and  flycatchers,  and  many  of  the  orig- 
inal drawings  which  were  made  in  the  summer  of  1829 
still  bear  his  penciled  designations  of  time  and  place.4 

8  See  "The  Great  Pine  Swamp,"  and  "Great  Egg  Harbour,"  Ornithologi- 
cal Biography  (Bibl.  No.  2),  vol.  i,  p.  52,  and  vol.  iii,  p.  606. 

4  Though  the  year  is  not  usually  indicated  on  the  originals,  the  follow- 
ing drawings  probably  belong  to  this  period: 

Black  Poll  Warbler,  New  Jersey,  May. 

Wood  Pewee  Flycatcher,  New  Jersey,  May. 

Small  Green-crested  Flycatcher,  New  Jersey,  May. 

Golden-crowned   Thrush,  New  Jersey,  May. 

Warbling  Flycatcher,  Vireo  gilvus,  New  Jersey,  May  23. 

Yellow-breasted  Chat,  New  Jersey,  June  7. 

Sea  Side  Finch,  Great  Egg  Harbour,  June  14. 

Marsh  Wren,  New  Jersey,  June  22. 

Bay-winged  Bunting,  Great  Egg  Harbour,  June  26. 

Canada  Flycatcher,  Great  Pine  Swamp,  August  1. 

Pine   Swamp   Warbler,   Great   Pine   Swamp,   August    11. 

Black  and  Yellow  Warbler,.  Great  Pine  Swamp,  August  12. 


426       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

About  ten  weeks  5  were  spent  in  the  woods,  from  late 
July  until  the  10th  of  October,  when  the  naturalist  re- 
turned to  Philadelphia  and  settled  again  for  a  time  in 
Camden.  At  this  period  he  was  enjoying  the  best  of 
health  and  spirits,  and  he  worked  during  the  entire  sea- 
son under  the  highest  pressure  of  which  he  was  capable. 
At  Camden,  October  11.  1829,  he  wrote: 

I  am  at  work,  and  have  done  much,  but  I  wish  I  had  eight 
pairs  of  hands,  and  another  body  to  shoot  the  specimens,  still 
I  am  delighted  at  what  I  have  accumulated  in  drawings  this 
season.  Forty-two  drawings  in  four  months,  eleven  large, 
eleven  middle  size,  and  twenty-two  small,  comprising  ninety- 
five  birds,  from  Eagles  downwards,  with  plants,  nests,  flowers, 
and  sixty  kinds  of  eggs.6  I  live  alone,  see  scarcely  any  one, 
besides  those  belonging  to  the  house  where  I  lodge.  I  rise  long 
before  day,  and  work  till  night-fall,  when  I  take  a  walk,  and 
to  bed. 

At  about  the  middle  of  October  Audubon  set  out 
to  join  his  family  in  the  South.  Crossing  the  mountains 
by  mail-coach  to  Pittsburgh,  where  he  met  his  former 
partner  in  business,  Thomas  Pears  (see  p.  254),  he  de- 
scended once  more  his  favorite  river,  the  Ohio.  It  was 
no  longer  necessary  to  rough  it  on  a  flatboat  or  to  sleep 
on  a  steamer's  deck;  it  was  to  be  "poor  Audubon"  no 
longer.  To  be  sure,  he  was  not  rich,  but  he  had  made 
his  way  and  his  mark,  and  the  attention  which  he  now 

Hemlock  Warbler,  Great  Pine  Swamp,  August  12. 
Autumnal  Warbler,  Great  Pine  Swamp,  August  20. 
Connecticut  Warbler,  New  Jersey,  September  22. 
Mottled  Owl,  New  Jersey,  October. 

5  Though  Audubon   said  that  he  spent  only  six  weeks  in  the   forest, 
the  indications  upon  his  drawings  imply  a  longer  period. 

6  At  this  time  Audubon  intended  to  figure,  in   full  size  and  natural 
colors,  the   eggs   of  the   "Birds   of   America,"    for   which   the   concluding 
numbers  of  his  plates  had  been  reserved,  but  when  the  time  came,  these 
numbers   had    to    be    given    over    to    new    acquisitions,    so   the    eggs    were 
eventually  crowded  out. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS    427 

began  to  receive  when  traveling  in  his  adopted  land 
must  have  gratified  his  heart.  He  paused  at  Louisville 
to  visit  his  two  boys,  the  elder  of  whom,  Victor,  was 
then  a  clerk  in  the  office  of  his  uncle,  William  G.  Bake- 
well,  while  John  was  with  another  uncle,  Nicholas  A. 
Berthoud.  Hastening  on  he  reached  Bayou  Sara  on 
November  17,  where  he  finally  joined  his  wife,  who  was 
living  at  the  home  of  William  Garrett  Johnson,  in  West 
Feliciana  Parish,  near  Wakefield.  Some  account  of 
this  journey  is  given  in  the  following  letter,7  written 
on  the  eighteenth  to  Dr.  Richard  Harlan;  in  the  post- 
script Audubon  gives  the  first  reference  to  a  new  hawk 
which  he  proposed  to  name  after  his  friend,  and  which 
has  given  no  little  trouble  to  ornithologists  ever  since : 8 

Audubon  to  Dr.  Richard  Harlan 

[Superscribed]  RICHD  HARLAN  Esqr.  M.  D.  &c  &c  &c 

Philadelphia  Pensa 

ST  FRANCISVILLE  LOUISIANA  Novembr  18** 
1829— 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND. — 

You  will  see  by  the  data  of  this  the  rapidity  with  which  I 
have  crossed  two  thirds  of  the  United  States.  I  had  the  happi- 
ness of  pressing  my  beloved  wife  to  my  breast  Yesterday  morn- 
ing; saw  my  two  sons  at  Louisville  and  all  is  well. — from 
Philadelphia  to  Pittsburgh  I  found  the  Roads,  the  Coaches, 
horses  Drivers  and  Inns  all  much  improved  and  yet  needing  a 
great  deal  to  make  the  traveller  quite  comfortable — The  slow- 
nesse  of  the  stages  is  yet  a  great  bore  to  a  man  in  a  hurry — I 
remained  part  of  a  day  at  Pittsburgh  where  of  course  I  paid 
my  respects  to  the  Museum !  I  was  glad  to  see  the  germ  of 

7  At  one  time  in  possession  of  Dr.  R.  W.  Shufeldt,  who  received  it 
from   Mrs.    Audubon;    given    verbatim   by    Elliott    Coues    (Bibl.    No.   43), 
Bulletin  of  the  Nuttall  Ornithological  Club,  vol.  v,  1880. 

8  Harlan's  Hawk,  or  the  Black  Warrior,  is  now  regarded  as  a  southern 
variety  of  the   Red-tailed   Hawk,  and  is   designated  under  the  trinomen, 
Bueto  borealis  harlani. 


428       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

one — it  is  conducted  by  a  very  young  man  named  Lambdin — I 
made  an  arrangement  with  him  [place  of  seal — paper  gone] 
&c,  &c.  &c.  at  Cincinnati  I  also  visited  the  Museum  [paper 
gone]  it  scarsely  improves  since  my  last  view  of  it,  except 
indeed  by  wax  figures  and  such  other  shows  as  are  best  suitable 
to  make  money  and  the  least  so  to  improve  the  mind. — I  could 
not  see  D  [illegible]  my  time  was  very  limited. — The  Ohio  was 
in  good  order  for  Navigation  and  I  reached  Louisville  distant 
from  you  about  1,000  Miles  in  one  week.^as  you  spoke  of 
travelling  westwardly  I  give  you  here  an  a/c  of  the  Fare. — to 
Pittsburgh  all  included  21$. — to  Louisville  12$. — and  25$ 
more  to  Bayou  Sarah  where  I  Landed.  30  $  is  the  price  from 
Louisville  to  N.  Orleans. =our  Steam  Boats  are  commodious 
and  go  well — but  my  Dear  Friend  the  most  extraordinary 
change  has  taken  place  in  appearance  as  I  have  proceeded. — 
The  foliage  had  nearly  left  the  Trees  in  Pensylvania,  the  Swal- 
lows had  long  since  disapeared  severe  frost  indeed  had  rendered 
Nature  gloomy  and  uninteresting — Judge  of  the  contrast: 
I  am  now  surrounded  by  Green  Trees  and  Swallows  gambole 
around  the  house  as  in  Pensylvania  during  June  &  July— The 
mock  bird  is  heard  to  sing  and  during  a  Walk  with  my  Wife 
yesterday  I  collected  some  20  or  30  Insects=that  is  not  all, 
a  friend  of  mine  here  says  that  he  has  discovered  2  or  3  New 
Birds  I  !  ! — new  Birds  are  new  birds  our  days,  and  I  shall  en- 
deavour to  shew  you  the  Facts  Simile  when  again  I  shall  have 
the  pleasure  of  shaking  your  hand — 

although  so  lately  arrived,  I  have  established  the  fact  that 
Mrs  A.  and  myself  will  be  on  our  way  towards  "Old  England" 
by  the  15th  of  JanJ-  we  will  ascend  the  Mississipi  and  after 
resting  ourselves  at  Louisville  with  our  sons  and  other  rela- 
tives about  one  month  and  then  proceed  with  the  Rapidity  of 
the  Wild  Pigeon  should  God  grant  our  wishes! — 

have  you  seen  or  heard  any  thing  of  Ward? — have  you 
the  little  sketch  of  Dear?=we  had  a  passenger  on  Board  the 
Huntress  named  Potts  from  your  City  who  knows  you  well  a 
lively  young  Gentleman;  has  a  Brother  (a  Clergyman)  estab- 
lished and  married  at  Natchez. — 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS   429 

I  will  begin  Drawing  next  week  having  much  scratching 
with  the  Pen  to  perform  this  one,  and  I  am  also  desirous  to 
make  [paper  gone]  Large  Shipment  of  aborigines  both  animal 
and  vegetal  as  soon  as  possible. — Turkeys,  Aligators,  Oppos- 
sums,  Paroekett,  and  plants,  as  Bignonias  &c  &c  &c-  will  be 
removed  to  the  Zoological  Gardens  of  London,  from  the  Natural 
ones  of  this  Magnificent  Louisiana ! — meantimes  I  will  not  for- 
get my  Friends  in  Phila-  no  I  would  rather  forgive  all,  to  all 
my  Ennemies  there. — assure  Dr  Hammersley  that  Ivory  Billed 
and  Peleated  Woodpeckers  will  be  skinned,  and  who  knows  but 
I  may  find  something  more  for  him. — I  will  give  free  leave  to 
Dr.  Pickering  to  chuse  amongst  the  Insects  and  who  knows  but 
I  may  find  something  new  for  him.  remember  me  most  kindly 
to  both,  nay  not  in  the  common  manner  of  saying  "Mr  Audubon 
begs  to  be  remembered"  no  not  [at]  all.  This  way  Mr  A  re- 
members you  and  you  and  7  will  remember  you  and  you  and  I 
always ! ! — 

May  I  also  beg  to  be  remembered  in  humble  words  to  a 
fine  pair  of  Eyes ;  divided,  not  by  the  Allegany  Mountains ; 
but  by  a  nose  evidently  imported  from  far  East,  to  a  placid 

forehead,  to  a  mouth  speaking  happiness  to  [dash 

nearly  across  page.] 

Should  you  see  Friend  Sully  remember  me  to  him  also — and 
should  you  see  George  Ord  Esqr-  Fellow  of  all  the  Societies 

Imaginable  present  him  my  most  humble  [dash  line 

more  than  across  the  page.] 

Should  you  see  that  good  woman  where  I  boarded  at 
Camd'den  tell  her  that  I  am  well  and  thankful  to  her  for  her 
attentions  to  me. — 

I  cannot  hope  the  pleasure  of  an  answer  from  you  here 
but  you  may  do  so,  and  I  say  pray  do  so,  directed  to  the  care 
of  N.  Berthoud  Esqr  Louisville  Kentucky. — by  the  bye  my 
sons  are  taller  than  me,  the  eldest  one  so  much  altered  that  I 
did  not  know  him  at  first  sight,  and  yet  I  have  Eyes — 
God  bless  You,  Your  Friend 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 


430      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

[The  following  is  written  across  the  first  page:] 

I  reopened  my  letter  to  say  that  I  have  Just  now  killed  a 
Large  New  Falcon  yes  positively  a  new  Species  of  Hawk  almost 
black  about  25  Inches  Long  and  4  feet  broad  tail  square  Eye 

yellowish  White,  Legs  and  Feet  bare  short  &  strong. 1  will 

skin  it ! ! !— 

remember  me  to  Lehman 

What  I  have  said  about  the  Hawk  to  You  must  be  Lawful 
to  Academicians  and  you  will  please  announce  Falco  Harlanii 

by 

John  J.  AUDUBON 

F.  L.  S.  L. 

The  following  extracts  are  from  a  letter 9  written  by 
Swainson,  January  30,  1830,  and  sent  to  Havell  in 
London  to  be  readdressed: 

William  Swainson  to  Audubon 

I  know  not  in  what  part  of  the  Wilds  of  America  you  may 
now  be  wandering,  but  I  hope  you  are  fully  intent  upon  your 
great  object,  and  that  you  are  not  only  making  drawings,  and 
taking  notes,  but  preserving  Skins,  of  all  your  little  favorites. 
Don't  forget  the  Shrikes,  of  which  I  have  strong  suspicions 
there  are  2  or  3  species  mixed  up  with  the  name  of  Logger- 
head. Should  you  be  in  the  land  of  the  Scarlet  Ibis,  do  pray 
procure  a  dozen  or  two  of  the  best  skins,  they  are  the  most 
magnificent  birds  of  No.  America,  and  are  said  to  be  common 
towards  New  Orleans. 

You  will  learn  frm  the  Newspapers  how  uncommonly  severe 
is  our  winter  the  snow  has  now  been  upon  the  ground  five  weeks 
and  it  is  still  falling.  I  manage,  however,  to  walk  out  every 
day,  and  thus  have  acquired  better  health  than  I  have  enjoyed 
for  many  years. 

Previous  to  your  embarking  to  England,  which  I  hope  you 
will  do  very  early  in  the  spring  you  must  do  me  one  favor. 

•Published  by  Ruthven  Deane  (Bibl.  No.  217),  The  Auk,  vol.  xxii, 
1905. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS   431 

Bring  me  two  Grey  Squirrels  alive,  and  a  cage  full  of  little 
birds,  either  the  painted  or  non-Pareil  finch  the  Blue  finch,  or 
the  Virginian  Nightingale,  as  they  are  called,  3  or  4  of  each 
to  guard  against  casualties  by  death  on  the  voyage.  I  do  not 
care  one  farthing  whether  they  sing  or  not,  so  that  I  presume 
they  may  be  got  for  a  mere  trifle.  The  Squirrels  would  delight 
the  little  people  beyond  measure,  and  would  prove  a  never- 
failing  source  of  amusement  to  them.  I  believe  you  have  other 
kinds  than  the  grey,  so  that  any  will  do.  If  you  cannot  get 
them  pray  supply  their  place  by  two  Parrots  of  America. 

We  continue  pretty  well  at  the  Green.  Seldom  go  to  town, 
but  I  find  people  begin  to  discover  the  true  character  of  V 
[igors].  and  many  that  were  formerly  his  friends  now  speak 
very  differently  of  him.  His  father  having  died  the  property 
has  come  to  him.  He  has  now  taken  a  fine  house  in  the  Re- 
gents park,  and  holds  conversaziones  (in  humble  imitation  of 
those  of  the  President  of  the  Royal  Society)  every  Sunday 
evening  during  the  season!!  all  this  is  very  grand,  and  he  ap- 
pears to  have  abandoned  writing  any  more  papers  on  or- 
nithology, since  I  have  begun  to  point  out  his  errors. 

Ward  wrote  to  me  since  my  last,  he  is  a  poor  weak  fellow, 
with  a  good  natural  disposition,  but  so  little  to  be  depended 
upon,  that  he  is  turned  round  by  every  feather,  after  insert- 
ing that  he  could  not  go  on  "in  my  service"  as  he  called  it, 
under  ten  dollars  a  week,  he  now  says  he  should  be  most  happy 
to  receive  -four.  He  says  not  a  word  of  his  marriage,  which 
proves  his  wish  to  decive  one.  I  have  done  with  him.  ...  I 
hope  you  have  got  me  lots  of  River  shells. 

About  the  beginning  of  the  year  1827  Mrs.  Audu- 
bon  gave  up  her  "Beechwoods"  school,  and  thereafter 
took  a  position  as  governess  in  the  home  of  Mr.  William 
Garrett  Johnson,  whose  plantation,  called  "Beech- 
grove,"  was  situated  in  the  same  parish.  An  anony- 
mous writer  thus  referred  to  this  house  in  1851 : 10 

10  Thomas  B.  Thorpe  (Bibl.  No.  64),  Qodey's  Lady's  Book,  vol.  xlii, 
1851. 


432       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

In  the  hospitable  mansion  of  W.  G.  J ,  in  the  parish  of 

West  Feliciana,  if  one  will  look  into  the  parlor,  they  will  see 
over  the  piano  a  cabinet  sized  portrait,  remarkable  for  a  bright 
eye  and  intellectual  look.  The  style  of  it  is  free,  and  there  is 
an  individuality  about  the  whole  that  gives  assurance  of  a 
strong  likeness.  Opposite  hangs  a  proof  impression  of  the 
bird  of  Washington,  a  tribute  of  a  grateful  heart  to  an  old 
friend.  The  first  is  a  portrait  of  Audubon  painted  by  himself ; 
the  other  is  one  of  the  first  [of  his]  engravings  that  ever 
reached  the  United  States. 

There  Audubon  spent  nearly  two  months  at  the  close 
of  1829,  and  followed  his  usual  occupations  of  hunting 
and  drawing,  while  his  wife  prepared  for  their  contem- 
plated journey  to  Europe.  He  is  said  to  have  drawn 
at  this  time  the  "Black  Vulture  attacking  a  herd  of 
Deer,"  several  large  hawks,  squirrels,  and  heads  of  deer 
which  were  never  finished. 

Although  Audubon's  business  affairs  in  England 
had  been  left  in  charge  of  his  trustworthy  friend,  John 
G.  Children,  his  engraver,  Havell,  had  become  alarmed 
at  the  loss  of  subscribers  and  the  failure  of  certain  of 
their  agents,  and  particularly  M.  Pitois  of  Paris,11  to 
render  due  returns.  Havell,  as  it  proved,  was  unduly 
disturbed,  but  his  gloomy  accounts  tended  to  hasten 
the  naturalist's  departure,  a  circumstance  that  was  later 
deplored.  These  matters  are  clearly  reflected  in  the 
following  letter  written  from  the  Johnson  home  in  Lou- 
isiana when  the  Audubons  were  preparing  to  leave  it; 
particularly  interesting  are  the  included  statements 

"While  in  Paris  in  1828,  Audubon  wrote  on  October  26  that  he  had 
received  a  call  from  "a  M.  Pitois,  who  came  to  look  at  my  book,  with  a 
view  to  becoming  my  agent  here;  Baron  Cuvier  recommended  him  strongly, 
and  I  have  concluded  a  bargain  with  him.  He  thinks  he  can  procure  a 
good  number  of  subscribers.  His  manners  are  plain,  and  I  hope  he  will 
prove  an  honest  man."  See  Maria  R.  Audubon,  Audubon  and  his  Journals 
(Bibl.  No.  86),  vol.  i,  p.  339. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS    433 

through  which  it  was  hoped  that  a  competent  successor 
might  be  secured  for  the  duties  of  the  position  which 
Mrs.  Audubon  had  so  ably  filled : 

Audubon  to  Robert  Havett 

BEECH  GEOVE,  LOUISIANA 
Deer  16th  1829 

MY  DEAR  MR  HAVELL. — 

I  received  yesterday  from  New  York  your  letter  of  the 
29th.  Sept.  which  must  have  reached  Philadelphia  3  days  after 
my  departure  for  home— 

I  am  sorry  that  Bartley  should  have  made  you  suffer  a 
moment  by  sending  you  the  intelligence  of  the  failure  of  the 
several  subscribers  you  mention  in  your  favor — it  cannot  be 
helped — there  is  none  of  your  fault  and  /  must  repair  these 
matters  when  I  reach  England  again= 

I  am  considerably  more  sorry  and  much  vexed  that  Sowler 
should  have  failed  in  his  written  promise  to  accept  your  Dfts. — 
even  in  a  case  of  the  diminution  of  subscribers  he  could  cer- 
tainly have  sent  you  a  progressional  amount — I  am  now  almost 
sure  that  Pitois  has  failed  or  acted  the  Rogue= 

We  are  making  all  preparations  in  our  power  to  leave 
Louisiana  on  the  5  or  10th.  of  Jan.y  and  we  will  proceed  as 
fast  as  Steam  Boats,  Coaches  and  the  weather  will  admit  of 
and  we  will  sail  for  England  from  New  York  with  all  possible 
dispatch.  I  have  made  a  shipment  of  Forest  trees  to  England 
that  I  hope  will  turn  to  good  account  as  they  are  to  be  presents 
to  Public  Institutions  &c  and  that  I  think  it  necessary  to 
be  remembered  myself. — 

We  are  both  well — our  sons  are  at  Louisville,  Kentucky 
where  we  will  see  them  about  the  20th.  of  next  month. — I  sent 
you  in  my  letter  a  proposal  for  your  sister  and  should  you 
not  have  received  it  I  send  it  you  again  here  in  Mrs  A.'s.  hand 
writing. — I  would  advise  your  sister  to  come  if  the  money  is 
an  object. — I  think  that  besides  she  will  be  comfortable  with 
the  familly  Johnson — if  she  thinks  fit  to  wait  untill  we  see 
her,  we  can  tell  her  all  about  it.= 


434       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

I  have  received  only  one  letter  from  friend  Children  dur- 
ing all  this  absence  against  my  very  many — 
I  hope  the  insects  I  sent  him  by  the  Annibal  have  reached  safely. 
— have  no  news  to  give  you — Keep  up  a  good  heart — we  will 
be  in  London  as  soon  as  possible. — I  have  not  had  a  letter 
from  Miss  Hudson  for  a  long  time — I  hope  her  mother  &  her 
are  well — Remember  me  kindly  to  your  Dear  Wife  and  Little 
ones — Mrs  Audubon  joins  me  in  all  good  wishes — If  you  see 
Parker  my  remembrances  to  him— I  will  carry  with  me  some 
Drawings  that  I  know  will  make  the  graver  and  the  Acid  Grin 
again. — 

Believe  me  your  friend — 

JOHN  J.  AUDUBON. 

When  you  present  my  sincere  regards  to  friend  Swanson 
[Swainson]  tell  him  that  I  have  had  only  one  letter  from  him 
and  that  I  am  now  quite  unable  to  say  where  Mr  Ward  is=I 
had  a  letter  from  Henry  Havell12  the  other  day  merely  ac- 
knowledging the  money  I  have  paid  him — he  was  in  New  York, 
I  hope  quite  well — 

[Enclosure] 

A  friend  of  ours  here  named  Wm.  Garrett  Johnson  (a 
cotton  planter)  a  gentleman  who  resides  in  a  perfectly  healthy 
and  agreeable  part  of  the  country,  desires  that  I  should  write 
to  England  to  procure  for  him  a  Governess,  one  who  can  teach 
music,  drawing  and  the  usual  branches  of  education  to  young 
Ladies.  Mr.  Johnson  will  pay  the  sum  of  one  thousand  dol- 
lars per  annum,  board,  lodging  &c,  also  and  considered  in  all 
respects  as  a  member  of  the  family,  to  any  lady  who  will  un- 
dertake occupation  (the  sum  is  about  230£)  the  governess  will 
have  to  instruct  ten  or  twelve  young  persons  of  various  ages, 
and  may  make  the  arrangement  for  five  years  if  desirous  of  it. 
I  have  thought  this  would  suit  your  sister  precisely,  and  for 
my  part  knowing  the  family  Johnson  as  I  do  I  should  think  it 
an  excellent  thing  for  her.  if  not  I  will  look  for  some  one  when 

"Henry  Augustus  Havell,  a  younger  brother  of  Robert  Havell, 
Junior;  see  Vol.  II,  p.  191. 


TO  AMERICA  IN  SEARCH  OF  BIRDS    435 

I  am  in  England,  Sailing  from  England  direct  for  New  Orleans, 
steam  Boats  reach  the  place  of  Mr  Johnson  in  two  days. 
Duplicate. 

I,  Wm.  Garrett  Johnson  do  authorize  my  friend  J.  J.  Audu- 
bon  to  make  the  above  proposition  and  do  by  these  present  obli- 
gate myself  to  comply  with  them  punctually  and  particularly. 

WM.  GAERETT  JOHNSON. 
[Addressed] 

MR  ROBT  HAVELL  JuR 

Engraver 
79  Newman  Street 
Oxford  Street 
London 
England 

"On  January  1,  1830,"  said  the  naturalist,  "we 
started  for  New  Orleans,  taking  with  us  the  only  three 
servants  yet  belonging  to  us,  namely,  Cecilia,  and  her 
two  sons,  Reuben  and  Lewis.  We  stayed  a  few  days  at 
our  friend  Mr.  Braud's,  with  whom  we  left  our  servants, 
and  on  the  seventh  of  January  took  passage  on  the 
splendid  steamer  Philadelphia  for  Louisville,  paying 
sixty  dollars  fare." 13  After  a  long  visit  with  their 
sons,  on  the  seventh  of  March  they  ascended  the  Ohio 
to  Cincinnati,  and  at  Wheeling  took  the  mail-coach  to 
Washington.  At  the  national  capital  Audubon  met 
the  President,  Andrew  Jackson,  and  was  befriended  by 
Edward  Everett,  at  that  time  a  leader  in  the  House  of 
Representatives.  "Congress,"  said  the  naturalist,  "was 
then  in  session,  and  I  exhibited  my  drawings  to  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  received  their  subscrip- 

"See  Lucy  B.  Audubon,  ed.,  Life  of  John  James  Audubon,  the 
Naturalist  (Bibl.  No.  73),  p.  203.  Since  black  slaves  were  the  only- 
domestics  available  in  the  South  at  that  time,  it  is  probable  that  the 
"servants"  referred  to  were  employed  by  Mrs.  Audubon  at  her  "Beech- 
grove"  school 


436       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

tion  as  a  body."  He  also  recorded  that  he  obtained 
three  subscribers  in  Baltimore,  and  left  for  Philadel- 
phia, where  they  remained  a  week.  The  following  note, 
which  Edward  Everett  gave  Audubon  for  New  York, 
is  particularly  interesting,  since  it  expressly  states  that 
at  that  time  the  ornithologist  had  not  received  a  single 
subscriber  in  the  United  States: 

Edward  Everett  to  Dr.  Wamwright 

WASHINGTON  18  March  1830 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

Allow  me  to  introduce  to  your  acquaintance,  the  bearer 
of  this  letter,  Mr.  Audubon  of  Louisiana.  His  drawings  of 
American  Birds,  of  which  he  will  show  you  some,  will  I  am 
sure  command  your  approbation,  as  they  have  the  applause 
of  Europe. — I  am  sorry  to  say,  that  he  has  not  yet  procured 
a  single  subscriber,  in  the  United  States  of  America.  Will  not 
one  of  your  Institutions  in  New  York — or  your  wealthy  and 
liberal  individuals — take  a  copy?  I  pray  you  endeavor  to 
procure  him  at  least  one  subscriber,  in  New  York. — 
Yours  with  great  regard 

E.  EVERETT. 
REV  DR  WAINWRIGHT 

Audubon  had  evidently  reconsidered  his  expressed 
intention  of  presenting  a  copy14  to  Congress,  and  to 
Edward  Everett  belongs  the  credit  of  subscribing  to 
The  Birds  of  America  in  behalf  of  the  Congressional 
Library.  At  about  this  time  also  he  obtained  another 
subscriber  at  Washington,  in  the  person  of  Baron 
Krudener,  the  Russian  envoy,  but  later  experienced  dif- 
ficulty in  collecting  his  dues.15 

14  See  Vol.  I,  p.  396. 

15  See  Vol.  II,  p.  38. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS  AND  ITS  RIVALS 

Settlement  in  London — Starts  on  canvassing  tour  with  his  wife — Change  of 
plans — In  Edinburgh — Discovery  of  MacGillivray — His  hand  in  the 
Ornithological  Biography — Rival  editions  of  Wilson  and  Bonaparte — 
Brown's  extraordinary  atlas — Reception  of  the  Biography — Joseph 
Bartholomew  Kidd  and  the  Ornithological  Gallery — In  London  again. 

On  the  1st  of  April,  1830,  Audubon  and  his  wife 
sailed  from  New  York  in  the  packet  ship  Pacific,  bound 
for  Liverpool,  where  they  landed  after  a  voyage  of 
twenty-five  days.  Upon  returning  to  London  the  nat- 
uralist found  that  upon  the  18th  of  the  preceding  March 
he  had  been  elected  to  membership  in  the  Royal  Society, 
an  honor  for  which  he  felt  indebted  to  Lord  Stanley 
and  his  friend  Children,  of  the  British  Museum;  after 
paying  the  entrance  fee  of  £50,  he  took  his  seat  in  that 
body  on  the  6th  of  May.  The  painting  of  pictures  was 
at  once  resumed  to  meet  his  heavy  expenses,  but  towards 
the  end  of  July  he  started  with  Mrs.  Audubon  on  a 
canvassing  tour,  in  the  course  of  which  his  plans  sud- 
denly were  changed  so  that  London  did  not  see  him 
again  for  nearly  a  year.1  On  this  journey  they  touched 
at  Birmingham,  Manchester,  Leeds,  York,  Hull,  Scar- 
borough, Whitby,  New  Castle,  and  Belford,  to  visit  the 
Selbys,  and  on  the  13th  of  October  reached  Edinburgh, 
where  they  were  soon  comfortably  settled  in  the  natural- 
ist's old  lodging  place,  the  house  of  Mrs.  Dickey,  Num- 
ber 26,  George  Street. 

1His  correspondence  with  William  Swainson  from  this  point,  and  the 
history  of  his  letterpress  so  far  as  that  naturalist  was  concerned,  will  be 
unfolded  later  (see  Chapter  XXIX). 

437 


438       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Auduboh  was  now  ready  to  begin  the  text  of  his 
Birds  of  America,  to  be  called  Ornithological  Biogra- 
phy, which  is  often  referred  to  as  his  "Biography  of 
Birds."  This  work,  which  was  eventually  extended  to 
five  large  volumes  of  over  three  thousand  pages,  was 
published  at  Edinburgh  from  1831  to  1839.  He  had 
made  crude  beginnings  with  this  in  view  as  early  as 
1821,  and  on  October  16,  1830,  he  wrote:  "I  know 
that  I  am  not  a  scholar  ..."  but,  "with  the  assistance 
of  my  old  journals  and  memorandum-books,  which  were 
written  on  the  spot,  I  can  at  least  put  down  plain  truths, 
which  may  be  useful,  and  perhaps  interesting,  so  I  shall 
set  to  at  once.  I  cannot,  however,  give  scientific  de- 
scriptions, and  here  must  have  assistance."  To  supply 
this  need,  as  we  have  seen  already,  he  had  earlier  applied 
to  William  Swainson,  but  the  negotiations  with  that 
naturalist  were  soon  broken  off,  and  led  to  a  sharp  and 
acrid  discussion  upon  the  authorship  of  the  work 
itself.2 

By  a  rare  stroke  of  genius  or  good  fortune,  Audubon 
chose  for  his  assistant  a  young  Scotch  naturalist,  Wil- 
liam MacGillivray,  who  had  been  introduced  to  him  by 
another  naturalist,  James  Wilson,  soon  after  he  reached 
the  Scottish  capital.  MacGillivray  agreed  "to  revise 
and  correct"  his  manuscript  at  the  rate  of  two  guineas 
per  sheet  of  sixteen  pages,  and  in  the  latter  part  of 
October,  1830,  they  set  to  work.  We  shall  soon  have 
occasion  to  speak  more  fully  of  his  debt  to  this  esti- 
mable Scotchman,3  and  will  only  add  here  that  a  better 
trained  or  more  competent  helper  than  MacGillivray 
could  hardly  have  been  found  in  Great  Britain  or  else- 
where. 

a  See  Chapter  XXVIII,  p.  87. 
•See  Chapter  XXX. 


3IKS.    1)1  t'K  IK'S   "HOARDIXd    RESIDENCE,"    ~2()  C.EOIU'.E   STRKKT, 
EDIXBURGH,     WHERE     AUDUBOX     OCCUPIED     APART- 
MENTS AND   PA1NTKI)    A  X 1)    WROTE    IX    IHJIi-.'T 
AM)    1830-31.      A    LARGE   PUBLIC   BUILDING 
XOW    OCCUPIES    THE    SITE. 

After  a   photograph   in  possession  of  Mr.    Ruthven 
Deane. 


THE    ACADEMY    OF    XATURAL    SCIEXCES   OF    PHILADELPHIA. 

After  an  old  print;  reproduced  from  Cassinia  for  1910. 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          439 

No  sooner  had  Audubon  begun  to  write  than  it  was 
learned  that  "no  less  than  three  editions  of  'Wilson's 
Ornithology'  were  about  to  be  published,  one  by 
Jameson,  one  by  Sir  W.  Jardine,  and  another  by  a  Mr. 
Brown."  The  outlook  could  not  be  considered  encour- 
aging, but  this  intelligence  only  nerved  him  to  greater 
effort,  and  he  was  determined  to  push  his  own  publica- 
tion with  such  unremitting  vigor  as  to  anticipate  them 
all.  "Since  I  have  been  in  England,"  he  wrote  in  his 
journal,  "I  have  studied  the  character  of  Englishmen 
as  carefully  as  I  have  studied  the  birds  in  America, 
and  I  know  full  well  that  in  England  novelty  is  always 
in  demand,  and  that  if  a  thing  is  well  known  it  will  not 
receive  much  support."  Audubon  worked  continuously 
at  his  Biography,  rising  before  the  dawn  and  writing  all 
day,  while  the  able  worker  at  his  side  carried  his  efforts 
far  into  the  night,  and  in  three  months  the  first  volume 
was  ready  for  the  printer;  Mrs.  Audubon  meanwhile 
copied  their  entire  manuscript  to  be  sent  to  the  United 
States  in  order  to  secure  the  American  copyright. 
When  this  work  was  offered  to  the  publishers  at  Edin- 
burgh, however,  not  one  of  them,  said  the  naturalist, 
would  offer  a  shilling  for  it,  but  this  did  not  deter  him 
from  publishing  it  at  once  and  at  his  own  expense.4  On 
March  13,  1831,  he  wrote:  "The  printing  will  be  com- 
pleted in  a  few  days,  and  I  have  sent  copies  of  the  sheets 
to  Dr.  Harlan,  and  Mr.  McMurtie,  at  Philadelphia,  and 
also  one  hundred  pounds  sterling  to  Messrs.  T.  Walker 
&  Sons,  to  be  paid  to  Dr.  Harlan  to  secure  the  copy- 
right, and  have  the  book  published  there." 

4  The  first  volume  of  the  Ornithological  Biography  in  the  European 
edition  bears  the  imprint  of  "Adam  Black,  55  North  Bridge,  Edinburgh;" 
in  the  four  subsequent  volumes  this  was  changed  to  "Adam  and  Charles 
Black,"  while  the  entire  work  was  printed  by  "Neill  &  Co.,  Printers,  Old 
Fish  Market,  Edinburgh."  See  Bibliography,  No.  2. 


440       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

The  following  friendly  letter  from  one  of  Wilson's 
editors  belongs  to  this  period: 

Sir  William  Jar  dine  to  Audubon 

JARDINE  HALL  3  d  Deer.  1830— 
MY  DEAR  SIR, 

I  only  learnt  a  few  days  since  that  you  were  to  winter  in 
Edinburgh,  and  perhaps  since  you  are  not  Hurried  for  time  in 
Trovelly  [?]  will  come  out  to  spend  a  day  or  two  with  me — If 
you  can  come  out  before  the  10  th.  when  I  shall  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  shewing  you  some  Blackgame  Shooting —  The  season 
expires  on  the  Tenth  of  the  Month  partridges  have  bred  so 
ill  that  there  is  scarsely  any  in  the  whole  country,  and  pheas- 
ants have  been  so  lately  introduced  that  they  are  yet  rather 
scarce —  In  a  wet  day  you  may  have  your  easel  &  brushes  I 
should  wish  much  to  hear  your  account  of  Wilson  during  the 
times  you  hunted  with  him — and  also  some  account  of  the 
New  Species  you  figure  in  the  american  Ornithology — 

I  am  happy  to  learn  you  intend  figuring  the  learned  Men 
of  America  as  accompanyment  to  your  work  particularly  the 
ornithologists,  do  you  know  the  painter  of  the  portrait  of 
Wilson —  I  have  three  portraits  of  him  in  the  House,  and  also 
a  profile  taken  by  the  machine  I  should  like  to  have  your  opin- 
ion of  them  one  of  the  portraits  was  painted  from  an  original 
that  went  to  America — 

I  shall  expect  to  hear  you  are  coming  soon — Mr  Lizars  will 
tell  you  about  coaches — &c 

With  best  regards  believe  me 

Sincerely  yours 

WM  JARDINE 
[Addressed]  J.  AUDUBON  Esqr 

Care  of  W.  H.  LIZARS  Esqr 
3  James  Square 
Edinburgh. 

Audubon  was  not  outstripped  by  his  Edinburgh 
rivals,  who  to  all  appearances  had  planned  to  cover  the 


ORNITHOLOGICAL  BIOGRAPHY, 

OR  AN  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  HAblTft  OF  THE 

BIRDS  OP  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA; 


ACCOMPANIED  BY  DESCRIPTIONS  OF  THK  OBJECTS  REPRESENTED 
IN  THE  WOHK  ENTITLED 

THE  BIRDS  OF  AMERICA, 

AND  INTERSPERSED  WITH  DELINKATIONS  OP  AMRRICAN 
SCENERY  AND  MANNKRS. 


BY  JOHN  JAMES  AUDI! BON,  P.U.SS.L.&E. 

rCLiow  or  THE  LixxrAX  AXD  XOOUMICAI.  *x  icTim  or  toxwnr  i  MCMBCB  or  THE  trctrx 

AXB  L1XXEAX  MH-IKTV  Of  XKW  YORK,  AT  THE  XATfHAI.  UUTOIT  MICIETV  AT  PABI*,  TB« 
WEBXEIIAX  XATI'MAL  IIKTOIT  mxIKTY  OT  KMXBfBOM  <  MOXOMAIT  MKMBCK  «T  THE 
•OCICTV  Of  XATI  BAL  IIISTOBV  OT  MAXCMEMTEE,  AXD  OT  TUB  «COTTIM  ACABKMT  OT 
PAIXTIXO,  ABCUITKCTL-BK,  AXO  «CrLPTl  BE,  *tr. 


EDINBURGH: 

ADAM  BLACK,  Mw  NORTH  BRIDQR,  EDINBURGH  s 

&  HAVKLL  JUN,  KNGRAVEB,  77-  OXFORD  STREET,  AND  LONGMAN,  REE* 
BROWN,  *  GREEN,  LONDON  t  GEORGE  SMITH,  TITHEIIAUR  STREET, 
UVEBPOOL;  T.  SOWLZR,  MANCHESTER  t  MRS  ROBINSON,  LEEDS » 
E.  CHABNLEY,  NEWCASTLE  i  POOL  «  BOOTH,  CHESTEft  j  AND  BE1L1JV, 
KNOTT,  4  BEILBY,  JUJIMINGHAII. 


MDCCCXXXI. 

TITLE  PAGE  OF  VOLUME  I  OF  THE  "ORNITHOLOGICAL  BIOGRAPHY." 

From  a  copy  presented  by  Audubon  to  William  MacGillivray  and  bearing 
the  latter's  signature. 

441 


442       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

field  of  American  ornithology  so  thoroughly  as  to  render 
his  work  a  drug  on  the  market,  if  not  to  make  it  super- 
fluous. Whether  this  were  really  true  or  not,  there  is 
no  doubt  that  Audubon's  activity  furnished  the  stimulus 
to  the  sudden  appreciation  of  the  work  of  his  predeces- 
sor that  was  manifested  in  Edinburgh  at  this  very  mo- 
ment of  time.  It  will  be  interesting  to  see  just  what 
these  rival  enterprises  were.  Professor  Jameson,  who 
had  been  of  great  service  to  Audubon  at  the  beginning 
of  his  undertaking,  prepared  a  pocket  edition  of  Wil- 
son's and  Bonaparte's  Ornithology,  with  miniature 
plates  which  were  issued  separately,  and  the  two  works, 
which  were  intended  to  go  together,  were  published  in 
1831. 5  Sir  William  Jardine  brought  out  an  edition  of 
Wilson's  and  Bonaparte's  work,  in  three  large  volumes, 
with  plates  engraved  by  W.  H.  Lizars  after  the  orig- 
inals and  carefully  colored  by  hand.6  This  was  thor- 

5  American  Ornithology,  or  the  Natural  History  of  the  Birds  of  the 
United    States.      By    Alexander    Wilson    and    Charles    Lucien    Bonaparte. 
Edited    by    Robert    Jameson  .  .  .  Regius    Professor    of    Natural    History 
in  the  University  of  Edinburgh.     Appearing  as   vols.   Ixviii-lxxi   of  Con- 
stable's Miscellany,  4  vols.,  18mo.,  Edinburgh  and  London,  1831.    This  was 
the  fourth   (?)   edition  of  Wilson's  work,  and  the  first    (?)   to  appear  in 
Europe;  with  portrait  of  Wilson  and  vignettes  on  titles  engraved  by  Lizars, 
memoir  of  Wilson  by  W.  M.  Hetherington,  and  extracts  from  Audubon, 
Richardson,  and  Swainson. 

The  plates  of  this  edition  were  issued  in  numbers,  under  title  of 
Illustrations  of  American  Ornithology;  reduced  from  the  work  of  Wilson; 
18mo.,  Edinburgh  and  London  (1831).  In  a  notice  of  the  first  number 
which  appeared  in  the  Caledonian  Mercury  (Edinburgh)  for  Oct.  29,  1831, 
it  was  stated  that  the  plates  were  issued  in  small  size  to  be  bound  up 
with  Jameson's  edition  of  the  text,  and  that  they  were  intended  "for  a 
different  class  of  purchasers  from  those  likely  to  take  the  folio  edition, 
then  being  brought  out  by  the  publishers  of  Constable's  Miscellany.  The 
plates  were  engraved  in  line  and  executed  in  a  very  superior  style,  both 
plain  and  colored." 

6  American    Ornithology;    or   Natural   History    of    the    Birds   of    the 
United  States,  by  Alexander  Wilson,  with  a  Continuation  by  Charles  Lucien 
Bonaparte,   Prince  of  Musignano.     The   Illustrative   Notes   and   Life  of 
Wilson  by   Sir   William   Jardine,  3   vols.,   8vo.,   London   and    Edinburgh, 
1832. 

The  second  (?)  European  edition  of  Wilson  and  Bonaparte,  with  97 
hand-colored  plates  engraved  by  Lizars.  The  Caledonian  Mercury  in 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          443 

oughly  legitimate  enterprise,  but  the  climax  was  reached 
when  Captain  Thomas  Brown  began  to  publish  an 
"Audubonized  edition"  of  Wilson's  and  Bonaparte's 
plates,  or  an  attempt  to  present  their  plates  of  American 
birds  in  the  Audubonian  manner,  to  the  extent  at  least 
of  showing  the  characteristic  flowers,  trees,  and  insects 
of  the  American  continent,  a  plan  to  which  some  of 
Audubon's  earlier  critics  in  Philadelphia  had  offered 
strenuous  objection.  Brown's  large  atlas  of  plates7  was 

noticing  the  work,  October  29,  1831,  said:  "It  must  be  highly  gratifying  to 
the  friends  and  connections  of  poor  Sandy  Wilson  to  see  such  honor,  at 
last,  paid  to  his  memory  in  his  native  land." 

''Illustrations  of  the  American  Ornithology  of  Alexander  Wilson  and 
Charles  Lucien  Bonaparte,  Prince  of  Musignano.  With  the  addition  of 
numerous  Recently  Discovered  Species,  and  Representations  of  the  Whole 
Sylva  of  North  America.  By  Captain  Thomas  Brown  [etc.,  etc.].  Folio, 
with  engraved  title,  engraved  dedication,  index,  and  124  engraved  and 
hand-colored  plates.  Edinburgh,  Frazer  &  Co.,  54  North  Bridge,  William 
Curry,  Jun'r  &  Co.,  Dublin  &  Smith,  Elder  &  Co.,  65  Cornhill,  London, 
MDCCCXXXV. 

It  is  stated  by  the  editor  of  this  extraordinary  work  that  he  had 
added  161  birds,  and  that  87  have  been  considerably  enlarged.  There 
are  167  representations  of  American  trees  and  shrubs,  said  to  have  been 
copied  for  the  most  part  from  Michaux'  Silva.  The  striking  Hibiscus 
grandiflorus  (plate  xli)  was  taken  without  acknowledgment  from  Audu- 
bon's drawing  of  the  Blue-winged  Warbler  (The  Birds  of  America,  plate 
xx).  For  the  most  part  the  figures  of  birds  are  redrawn  from  Wilson 
and  Bonaparte  and  given  new  positions  and  backgrounds.  A  few  of  the 
plates,  as  that  of  the  California  Vulture  (no.  1),  bear  the  legend,  "Drawn 
by  Captn.  Tho.  Brown;"  all  are  uneven,  and  many  extremely  poor  in 
execution,  the  fourteen  by  W.  H.  Lizars  being  the  best.  J.  B.  Kidd,  for 
a  time  associated  with  Audubon  (see  Vol.  I,  p.  446)  is  credited  with  four 
plates;  other  engravers  employed  on  the  work  were  James  Turvey,  who  exe- 
cuted the  elaborate  title,  Samuel  Milne,  James  Mayson,  R.  Scott,  J.  &  J. 
Johnstone,  E.  Mitchell,  William  Davie,  S.  A.  Miller,  John  Miller,  Audw. 
Kilgour,  Wm.  Warwick,  and  W.  McGregor.  Plate  xiv,  the  Snowy  Owl, 
Strix  nyctea,  engraved  by  the  editor,  has  the  interest  of  a  caricature. 
Some  plates  show  as  many  as  fourteen  birds  in  a  medley  of  brilliant 
foliage,  flowers  and  fruits.  The  violence  of  the  coloring  is  often  such 
as  to  destroy  the  effect  of  the  best  plates,  and  gaudy  butterflies  flit 
through  the  pages  as  if  they  were  the  common  food  of  every  species, 
not  excluding  the  American  grouse  (see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  359). 

Captain  Brown's  Illustrations  were  said  by  a  writer  in  the  Edinburgh 
Literary  Journal  for  April  9,  1831,  "to  form  a  companion  to  the  letterpress 
in  Constable's  Miscellany  (see  Note,  Vol.  I,  p.  442) ;  price,  colored,  15  shil- 
lings; plain,  10s.  6d.  A  few  in  elephant  folio  (same  size  as  Selby's  British 
Ornithology);  colored,  1  guinea.  To  be  completed  in  10  parts,  each  con- 


444       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

issued  in  parts,  from  1831  to  1835,  and  was  intended  as 
a  further  companion  to  Jameson's  text  for  all  who  could 
afford  that  expensive  form  of  illustration.  By  a  curious 
coincidence  Audubon's  Ornithological  Biography  (vol. 
i),  Jameson's  edition  of  Wilson  and  Bonaparte  (vol.  i), 
and  Brown's  Illustrations  (pt.  i),  were  all  noticed  on 
the  same  page  of  the  London  Literary  Gazette  for 
April  9,  1831.  "This  day  is  published,"  so  reads  the 

taining  5  colored  plates;  22  inches  long  by  17  inches  broad,  being  con- 
sidered more  than  double  the  size  of  the  original  work."  The  first  number 
of  this  work  was  reviewed  in  the  London  Literary  Gazette  for  October  8, 
1831,  when  it  was  said  that  in  it  were  represented  25  birds,  13  forest  trees, 
and  12  insects;  the  completed  work  would  comprehend  "all  the  forest 
trees  of  America,  with  their  fruits,  together  with  the  principal  insects 
of  the  country,"  as  well  as  all  the  birds  that  had  been  discovered  up  to 
the  time  of  issue. 

Brown's  piratical  work  must  have  had  a  very  limited  circulation, 
since  it  is  now  so  rare  that  not  even  the  British  Museum  possesses  a 
copy,  and,  so  far  as  known,  it  is  not  found  in  any  public  library  of  the 
United  States.  I  was  told  at  Wheldon's,  the  London  shop  devoted  to 
works  on  natural  history,  that  but  two  copies  had  ever  been  handled,  and 
that  they  commanded  a  high  price.  The  work  was  originally  sold  at 
£26.  The  only  copy  known  to  me  is  in  the  library  of  the  Zoological  Society 
in  London,  from  which  the  present  citation  is  made;  on  one  of  its  fly-leaves 
is  written  this  note:  "I  have  seen  the  wrapper  of  No.  1  of  this  work. 
It  is  dated  1831.  There  is  no  information  as  to  its  contents.  C.  Davis 
Sanborn.  22.5.05."  This  copy  was  referred  to  by  Dr.  Theodore  Gill;  see 
The  Osprey,  vol.  v,  pp.  31  and  109  (Washington,  1900  and  1901).  Dr.  Walter 
Faxon  has  traced  two  other  copies,  one  formerly  in  possession  of  Professor 
Alfred  Newton,  and  another,  but  very  imperfect  set,  in  a  private  library 
at  Tarrytown,  New  York.  According  to  Faxon,  a  single  brown  paper  wrap- 
per preserved  in  the  Tarrytown  copy  bears  a  full  printed  title,  which  differs, 
however,  from  that  which  was  subsequently  engraved  for  the  completed 
work;  for  fuller  citation,  see  "A  Rare  Work  on  American  Ornithology," 
The  Auk,  vol.  xx  (1903),  pp.  236-241. 

Mr.  Ruthven  Deane  has  written  me  that  several  years  ago  he  secured  in 
New  York  a  fragment  of  this  work,  consisting  of  the  paper  wrappers  of 
four  Parts,  Nos.  1-4,  the  last  three  of  which  contained  five  plates  each; 
there  were  in  addition  10  scattered  plates,  making  25  plates  in  all;  the 
price  of  "21  Shillings"  is  printed  on  each  of  the  wrappers,  which  also  bear 
the  date  "1831,"  but  no  titles. 

Another  pirated  work,  Illustrations  of  the  Genera  of  Birds,  by  the 
same  author,  was  begun  in  1845,  but  met  with  even  less  success,  and  was 
never  completed;  this  was  taken  from  A  List  of  the  Genera  of  Birds,  pub- 
lished in  1840  by  George  Robert  Gray,  and  according  to  Alfred  Newton 
(A  Dictionary  of  Birds,  London,  1896,  p.  30,  note)  was  "discreditable  to  all 
concerned  with  it." 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          445 

advertisement  of  Audubon's  work,  "price  25s.  in  royal 
octavo,  cloth,  Ornithological  Biography.  .  .  ."  If  the 
desire  of  these  various  editors  were  to  cripple  the  work 
of  the  American  naturalist,  their  efforts  were  certainly 
vain,  for  he  was  able  to  make  his  way  against  all  com- 
petitors. Brown's  work  was  a  failure,  so  few  copies 
having  been  distributed  that  it  is  doubtful  if  more  than 
one  ever  came  to  this  country,  and  only  one  is  known 
to  be  in  possession  of  any  large  library  in  England. 

Audubon's  initial  volume  of  the  Biography  was  well 
received  and  drew  forth  immediate  and  unstinted  praise 
from  many  sources.  He  was  anxious  that  MacGillivray 
should  contribute  some  account  of  it  to  the  London 
Quarterly  Review,  then  under  the  editorial  manage- 
ment of  John  Gibson  Lockhart,  but  his  suggestion  was 
coldly  received  and  drew  forth  the  following  declara- 
tion of  independence  from  his  able,  if  as  yet  undistin- 
guished, coadjutor:8 

With  respect  to  the  review,  I  can  only  say  that  if  Mr. 
Lockhart  is  so  doubtful  as  to  my  powers,  he  may  doubt  as 
long  as  he  lists.  I  shall  not  submit  any  essay  of  mine  to  his 
judgment.  If  you  had  informed  me  that  he  or  the  conductor 
of  my  other  review  would  print  a  notice  of  your  works,  I  should 
have  agreed  to  write  one  with  pleasure,  but  under  existing  cir- 
cumstances I  shall  not,  it  being  repugnant  to  my  feelings  and 
contrary  to  my  practice  and  principles  to  sue  for  favor  with 
any  man.  I  have  already  written  three  reviews  of  your  books 
which  have  been  printed,  and  when  I  am  applied  to  for  a 
fourth  I  shall  write  it  too,  with  "an  elegance  of  style,  a  power 
of  expression,  and  knowledge  of  the  subject"  equal  to  those 
usually  displayed  by  the  editor  of  the  Quarterly. 


8  See  Ruthven  Deane  (Bibl.  No.  209),  The  Auk,  vol.  xviii  (1901). 
The  extract  is  from  a  letter  dated  "Edinburgh,  22  Warriston  Crescent  7th 
May,  1831." 


446       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

Some  of  the  criticism,  whether  friendly  or  hostile,  which 
this  work  eventually  evoked  will  be  considered  in  a  later 
chapter. 

Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  London,  Audubon  re- 
ceived a  call  from  Joseph  Bartholomew  Kidd,  a  young 
artist  whom  he  had  met  at  Edinburgh  the  previous 
March,  and  was  attracted  so  much  by  his  "youth,  sim- 
plicity and  cleverness"  that  he  again  invited  him  to 
paint  in  his  rooms.  On  the  31st  of  March,  1831,  an 
agreement  was  made  with  Kidd 9  to  copy  some  of  his 
drawings  in  oils  and  put  in  appropriate  backgrounds. 
"It  was  our  intention,"  said  Audubon,  "to  send  them 
to  the  exhibition  for  sale,  and  to  divide  the  amount 
between  us.  He  painted  eight,  and  then  I  proposed,  if 
he  would  paint  the  one  hundred  engravings  which  com- 
prise my  first  volume  of  the  Birds  of  America,  I  would 
pay  him  one  hundred  pounds."  In  1832  Captain 
Thomas  Brown  gave  this  notice  of  the  undertaking  in 
the  Caledonian  Mercury: 

About  a  year  ago  Audubon  conceived  the  grand  idea  of  a 
Natural  History  Gallery  of  Paintings,  and  entered  into  an 
agreement  with  Mr.  Kidd  to  copy  all  his  drawings  of  the  same 
size,  and  in  oil,  leaving  to  the  taste  of  that  excellent  artist  to 
add  such  backgrounds  as  might  give  them  a  more  pictorial 
effect.  In  the  execution  of  such  of  these  as  Mr.  Kidd  has  fin- 
ished, he  has  not  only  preserved  all  the  vivacious  character  of 
the  originals,  but  he  has  greatly  heightened  their  beauty,  by 
the  general  tone  and  appropriate  feeling  which  he  has  pre- 
served and  carried  throughout  his  pictures. 

Kidd  worked  intermittently  on  some  such  scheme 
for  about  three  years,  and  produced  numerous  pictures 

8  Kidd,  who  was  twenty-three  at  the  time  he  began  to  work  for  Audubon, 
died  in  1889,  when  he  had  attained  his  eighty-first  year. 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          447 

on  canvas  or  mill-board.    He  was  thus  engaged  in  1833 
when  he  wrote  to  ask  for  an  advance  of  from  twelve  to 
fourteen  pounds  on  account  of  an  accident  that  had 
befallen  him  on  the  16th  of  May  of  that  year.     Kidd 
said  in  his  letter  that  while  he  was  attending  a  sale  of 
Lord  Eldin's  pictures,  the  floor  of  the  building  sud- 
denly gave  way  with  a  crash  and  precipitated  the  whole 
company,  together  with  the  furniture,  into  a  room  be- 
low; that  he  had  sustained  many  bruises  himself,  not 
to  speak  of  a  dislocated  arm,  but  what  with  blisters, 
cupping,  nurses  and  remedies  of  all  sorts,  he  was  then 
slowly  mending.     Another  of  their  projects  was  to 
publish  Kidd's  copies  of  Audubon's  drawings  as  indi- 
vidual pieces,  and  a  notice  of  this  appeared  in  Black- 
wood's  Magazine  for  1831.    John  Wilson,  in  reviewing 
Audubon's  work  in  the  magazine  for  that  year  said: 
"it  is  expected  that  there  will  be  completed  by  Audu- 
bon,    Kidd,    and    others, — Four    Hundred    Subjects. 
Audubon    purposes    opening,    on    his    return    [from 
America],  an  Ornithological  Gallery,  of  which  may  the 
proceeds  prove  a  moderate  fortune!"    All  such  plans, 
however,  seem  to  have  been  delayed  or  frustrated,  and  a 
misunderstanding  with  Kidd  brought  them  suddenly  to 
a  close  in  1833.     Audubon's  explicit  directions  under 
this  head  were  given  in  a  letter  to  his  son  Victor,  written 
at  Charleston  on  Christmas  Day  of  that  year.10 

When  his  letterpress  was  finished,  Audubon  left 
Edinburgh  with  Mrs.  Audubon  on  April  15,  1831. 
Newcastle,  York,  Leeds,  and  Manchester  were  again 
visited,  and  a  pause  of  several  days  was  made  at  Liver- 
pool before  proceeding  to  London,  when,  as  the  natural- 
ist recorded,  they  "traveled  on  that  extraordinary  road, 
called  the  railway,  at  the  rate  of  24  miles  an  hour."  In 

10  See  Chapter  XXVII,  p.  62. 


448       AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

May  "  they  visited  Paris,  Audubon  no  doubt  wishing 
to  collect  the  money  due  from  his  agent  there,  as  well 
as  to  introduce  his  wife  to  the  unrivaled  attractions  of 
the  great  city.  Upon  returning  to  London  in  July  he 
had  the  pleasure  of  again  meeting  his  fidus  Achates, 
Edward  Harris,12  of  Moorestown,  New  Jersey,  and 
immediately  began  to  put  his  affairs  in  order  for  a  long 
period  of  absence. 

While  Audubon  was  in  Paris,  the  following  letter 13 
was  written  by  his  staunch  friend  and  supporter  in  Con- 
gress, Edward  Everett,  who,  as  has  been  seen,  fully  ap- 
preciated the  national  character  of  his  great  undertak- 
ings. The  effort  of  this  able  advocate  to  give  The  Birds 
of  America  free  passage  to  their  native  land,  however, 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  successful  until  two  years 
later,  as  a  letter  to  be  quoted  in  due  course  clearly  indi- 
cates. 

Edward  Everett  to  Audubon 

CHARLESTOWN,  MASS.,  May  19th,  1831. 
MY  DEAR  SIR 

I  duly  received  your  favor  of  the  1st.  of  Nov.  accompanied 
with  some  copies  of  the  Prospectus,  and  a  few  days  since  your 
letter  of  the  5th.  March  reached  me.  I  owe  you  an  apology 
for  being  so  tardy  in  my  reply  to  the  former  letter.  It  reached 
me  at  Washington,  while  I  was  confined  with  a  severe  illness, 

"An  indication  of  the  time  of  this  visit  is   given  by   the   following 
inscription  written  in  the  copy  of  the  first  volume  of  the  Ornithological 
Biography,   which  was  presented  to  Cuvier   at  this  time: 
To 

Baron  G.  Cuvier, 
with    the    highest    respect    of    the 
author. — 

Paris—  17  th.  May,  1831. 

12  On  Wednesday  evening,  July  27,  1831,  Audubon  sent  the  following 
note  to   Mr.    Harris:    "Come   to   meet   me   tomorrow,  precisely   at   twelve 
o'clock,  at  our  lodgings,  121  Great  Portland  street." 

13  For  the  perusal  of  this  letter  the  reader  is  indebted,  as  in  so  many 
other  instances,  to  Mr.  Ruthven  Deane. 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          449 

with  which,  since  Oct.  last,  I  have  till  lately  been  much  afflicted. 
I  was,  most  of  the  session,  in  such  a  state  of  health,  as  to  be 
kept  at  my  lodgings,  and  when  in  my  place,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  little  able  to  attend  to  business.  As  soon  as 
I  went  abroad,  after  the  receipt  of  your  letter,  I  consulted 
some  of  the  most  influential  members  of  Congress,  as  to  the 
probability  of  being  able  to  pass  a  bill  for  the  free  introduc- 
tion of  your  work.  Last  winters  session  was  the  short  session, 
terminating  by  the  Constitution  on  the  3d.  of  March.  At  this 
session,  it  is  always  very  difficult  to  pass  any  bills,  originating 
during  the  session.  The  time  is  regularly  taken  up  by  bills, 
prepared  the  previous  winter.  In  addition  to  this  circum- 
stance, more  than  half  of  the  last  session  was  taken  up,  by  an 
impeachment  before  the  Senate.  A  procedure,  which  suspended 
during  its  continuance,  the  legislative  business  of  the  two 
Houses,  and  left  no  time  for  scarce  anything,  beyond  the 
annual  appropriation  bills  for  the  support  of  the  government. 
Under  these  circumstances,  the  gentlemen,  whom  I  consulted, 
were  of  opinion  with  me  that  it  was  impossible,  for  want  of 
time,  to  pass  a  bill  in  your  favor,  and  that  it  was  therefor 
better  not  to  attempt  it,  at  the  late  session,  but  to  reserve  it 
for  next  winter,  when  it  can  be  brought  up  seasonably,  and 
with  good  hope  of  success.  I  shall  take  great  pleasure  to  seize 
the  first  moment,  at  the  opening  of  the  next  session,  to  bring 
the  subject  before  Congress. 

The  portions  of  your  work,  which  arrived  at  Washington 
before  I  left  it,  were  publicly  exhibited  in  the  library,  and 
attracted  great  attention  and  unqualified  admiration.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  copy  received  by  the  Boston  Athenaeum. 
The  plates  were  specially  exhibited  in  the  great  hall  of  the 
Athenaeum,  to  the  entire  satisfaction  and  delight  of  those  who 
saw  them. 

The  copy-right  law  authorizes  any  citizen  of  the  U.  States 
to  take  out  a  copy-right  of  his  work,  on  depositing  a  printed 
copy  of  the  title  page  in  the  office  of  the  District  Court.  I 
infer  from  youi  letter  of  the  5th.  of  March,  that  you  had  sent 
copies  of  the  printed  sheets  of  your  work  to  Drs.  Harlan  and 


450      AUDUBON,  THE  NATURALIST 

M.  Mertrie  [McMurtie]  of  Philadelphia  with  a  view  of  hav- 
ing the  copy-right. 

I  have  distributed  a  part  of  your  prospectuses,  and  shall  do 
the  same  with  the  rest,  in  the  manner  that  may  seem  most  likely 
to  promote  your  interest.  I  regret  to  say,  that  I  have  not  yet 
been  able  to  add  another,  to  the  list  of  your  subscribers. 

You  mention,  in  each  of  your  letters,  the  little  picture  you 
were  so  kind,  as  to  propose  sending  me.  This  alone  leads  me 
to  say,  that  whenever  it  comes  to  hand,  it  will  be  most  wel- 
come: but  that,  engaged  as  you  are  in  laboring  in  the  cause 
of  science  and  of  America,  you  must  not  feel  obliged  to  con- 
sume one  hour  of  your  precious  time  at  the  sacrifice  of  those 
higher  objects. 

I  am  happy  to  be  able  to  say  to  you,  that  my  health,  though 
not  wholly  restored,  is  greatly  improved,  and  that  if  you  will 
continue  to  favor  me  with  your  commands,  I  will  prove  my- 
self, hereafter,  a  more  punctual  correspondent. 

I  look  forward  with  sincere  pleasure,  to  the  prospect  of 
meeting  you  again,  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  with  my 
respectful  compliments  to  Mrs.  Audubon,  I  beg  leave,  dear  sir, 
to  tender  you  the  assurance  of  my  high  respects,  and  with  it 
my  most  friendly  salutations. 

EDWARD  EVERETT. 

P.  S.  Since  the  foregoing  was  written,  I  have  received  your 
favor  of  the  £3d.  of  April.  I  beg  leave  particularly  to  thank 
you  for  your  kindness  in  reference  to  the  picture.  I  shall 
prize  it,  not  merely  on  account  of  its  scientific  value  and  beauty 
as  a  work  of  art,  (both  of  which  I  feel  assured  it  will  be  found 
to  possess)  but  as  a  token  of  your  friendly  regard.  It  will 
give  me  great  pleasure  to  furnish  you  any  letters  in  my  power, 
for  your  adventurous  south  western  tour.  These  I  shall  have 
the  pleasure  of  handing  you,  when  we  meet  this  side  the 
water. 

You  were  elected  in  November  last  a  fellow  of  the  American 
Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences,  on  the  nomination  which  I  had 
the  honor  to  submit  to  that  body.  Owing  to  a  change  in  the 


AUDUBON'S  LETTERPRESS          451 

secretaryship  a  delay  arose  in  preparing  your  diploma,  which 
will  however  be  forwarded  in  a  few  days. 

Upon  balancing  his  accounts  with  The  Birds  of 
America  at  about  this  time,  Audubon  thought  it  was 
truly  remarkable  that  $40,000  should  have  passed 
through  his  hands  for  the  completion  of  the  first  volume. 

Who  would  believe  that  once  in  London  I  had  only  a 
sovereign  left  in  my  pocket,  and  did  not  know  to  whom  to 
apply  for  another,  when  at  the  verge  of  failure;  above  all, 
that  I  extricated  myself  from  all  my  difficulties,  not  by  borrow- 
ing money,  but  by  rising  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  work- 
ing hard  all  day,  and  disposing  of  my  works  at  a  price  which 
a  common  labourer  would  have  thought  little  more  than  suffi- 
cient remuneration  for  his  work?  To  give  you  an  idea  of  my 
actual  difficulties  during  the  publication  of  my  first  volume,  it 
will  be  sufficient  to  say,  that  in  the  four  years  required  to 
bring  that  volume  before  the  world,  no  less  than  fifty  of  my 
subscribers,  representing  the  sum  of  fifty-six  thousand  dol- 
lars, abandoned  me!  And  whenever  a  few  withdrew  I  was 
forced  to  leave  London,  and  go  to  the  provinces,  to  obtain 
others  to  supply  their  places,  in  order  to  enable  me  to  raise 
the  money  to  meet  the  expenses  of  engraving,  coloring,  paper, 
printing  .  .  . ;  and  that  with  all  my  constant  exertions,  fa- 
tigues, and  vexations,  I  find  myself  now  having  but  one  hundred 
and  thirty  standing  names  on  my  list. 

(1) 


73. 


